


Lodestar

by pterawaters



Series: Mr. Sandman [10]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Chronic Pain, College, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Insomnia, Jonathan Byers Has Powers, Kidnapping, Medical Trauma, Moving In Together, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Medication, Superpowers, Will Byers Has Powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:15:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 76,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21769732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters
Summary: Jonathan and Steve move to Chicago together, finally back to living in the same city as Nancy. Except, not everything from their past stays in the past, and college comes with its own challenges. This is all not to mention the mysterious disappearance of a student who was participating in a research study at the university hospital.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Jonathan Byers & Will Byers, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Series: Mr. Sandman [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1527764
Comments: 145
Kudos: 163





	1. Moving Day

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, welcome to the latest installment of this series! I would definitely recommend reading the other installments of the series before getting into this one.
> 
> There are a lot of heavy topics covered in this fic, so please make sure to pay attention to the tags. I've elected not to use content warnings for this one, which means I'll be warning for possibly triggering content on a chapter-by-chapter basis. Stay safe, everyone!
> 
> lodestar:  
> noun, a star that is used to guide the course of a ship, especially the Pole Star

  
  


**_August 1986_ **

“I don’t know, you guys,” Will said as he walked around the empty apartment. “I’m not sure it’s going to be big enough.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jonathan insisted, putting down a box and grabbing the key from Will’s hands. “Bedroom, living room, kitchen. What else do we need?”

“Jobs,” Steve said, straining as he and Hop carried the mattress through the door. “We need jobs!”

“We’ll be fine,” Jonathan told him. “We’ve got money saved up and two weeks until classes start. Lots of time to look.”

Joyce squeezed Jonathan’s shoulder. “This is nice! You did a good job, kiddo.”

Jonathan felt his cheeks go hot. Three weeks prior, he and Steve had taken a few days to drive up and find an apartment. This one wasn’t too far from their school, and though it was small, the price was right. Or, at least, it was right as far as Nancy had figured out for them. 

Jonathan could have done the math, easy. He’d been budgeting for gas and groceries since he was sixteen. But Nancy had seemed so excited to plan and organize everything. He didn’t want to take that away from her. 

A knock at the door caught Jonathan’s attention. “Hello?” There stood a young woman wearing shorts and a tight shirt, her dark hair in braids behind her ears. “Wow, I hope it’s not all of you moving in!”

“No,” Jonathan said, looking around at the way his family was packed into the apartment. Except, he didn’t know how to explain who everyone was to a stranger. “I mean…”

Steve gave him a look that said he thought Jonathan was adorably hopeless. Stepping forward, Steve gave the woman his hand to shake. “Hey, I’m Steve. And don’t worry, it’s just me and this guy,” he said, putting one hand on Jonathan’s shoulder and using the other to push his hair out of his eyes. “Let me guess. You live across the hall?”

She smiled at Steve and actually batted her eyes, “Yeah. I’m Claire. Nice to meet you, Steve!”

Jonathan turned away from her and rolled his eyes, getting a laugh from Will. "We have more boxes to haul," Jonathan said to the room at large, waving Will and El to come with him. On his way out the door, he brushed past Claire, giving her what he hoped was a polite nod. As much as he really wanted to tell her to back off, it would look weird coming from him. It would have to come from Steve.

After almost three years together, Jonathan trusted Steve more than anyone else. He would do the right thing. Once he realized what Claire was after, anyway. 

As Jonathan went down the stairs to the moving truck below, he heard Steve say, "That's Jonathan." Claire said something Jonathan couldn't hear, but then Steve followed it up, saying, "Oh, that's not going to be a problem. We're best friends, you know? Super used to sharing space."

So the party line on the matter was " _best friends_ ," then? Jonathan snorted and shook his head as he went out the front door of their new apartment building. He supposed it was true. Steve _was_ Jonathan's best friend. It's just that their relationship wasn't even remotely platonic.

Still, the term fit them better than the "brothers" excuse they'd had to give a few times to explain why Steve had spent the last year living with Joanthan and his family. 

As Jonathan passed Steve on the way back into the apartment, Steve was showing Claire a photo and saying, "That's my girlfriend, Nancy. She's starting at Northwestern next week."

"Wow," Claire said, giving Jonathan a look over the picture, like she was just seeing him now that she knew Steve had a girlfriend. "She's really pretty."

Jonathan dropped the box in the main living room and stopped next to Steve, giving him a nudge. "Some help with this would be appreciated."

Steve gave him a dumb look for a second before he finally got it. "Right!" he said, putting the picture of Nancy back into his wallet. "Sorry, Claire. Duty calls." He bounded down the stairs.

"Let me know if you need anything," she said, giving Jonathan another look. " _Anything_."

"Yeah, sure," Jonathan told her, trying to convey how much what she was implying was never going to happen. "Nice to meet you."

"You too."

Catching up to Steve, Jonathan asked him quietly, "Best friends?"

Steve shrugged and then took the box Hop handed down to him from the back of the truck. "You're mine. Am I not yours?"

Jonathan took a box and followed Steve, teasing him, " _Nancy's_ my best friend."

As El passed them, she said very matter-of-factly, "You can have more than one best friend."

Steve gave Jonathan a look that said, "See?" 

Jonathan rolled his eyes again, but he found himself smiling, even when he reached the top of the stairs.

After they got everything into the apartment and locked it with Jonathan's brand-new key, everyone headed to the pizza place down the block, Nero's. Jonathan noticed his mom getting a little misty-eyed as they looked at the menu, Steve and Will arguing over what sort of pizza was the best.

Jonathan leaned toward Joyce and said, "It's going to be okay. We'll see you at Thanksgiving, if not before."

"I know," she said, putting an arm around Jonathan's back and hugging him. "It's going to be so much quieter around the house, though. I'll miss you guys."

Looking over at where El and Will were now competing to balance silverware on their fingers, Jonathan said, "I have a feeling it'll still be noisy enough." He nudged her with his shoulder and nodded to Steve, who had joined in on the competition. "You could always adopt more teenagers."

Joyce laughed. "I suppose we could."

There was a rhythm to meals in their weird little blended family, and as Jonathan felt that rhythm winding down, he knew he was going to miss it. Still, he was starting out on a new adventure. It was nerve wracking and exciting all at once.

After many hugs and a few tears, the rest of the family drove away, and Steve and Jonathan were left in their brand new apartment, alone. Steve grinned at Jonathan and they wrapped their arms around each other. 

"What do you think, babe?" Steve asked, looking around at the chaos that was their living room. "Should we try to put the bed frame back together, or should we just sleep on the mattress on the floor?"

"Floor," Jonathan decided. "My arms feel like jelly."

Steve gave him a little grin and took Jonathan's hand, walking backward toward the bedroom. "Hopefully you're not _too_ tired."

"Depends how much of the work I have to do," Jonathan said, but they both knew he was lying. 

He almost let Steve pull him into a kiss, except he remembered that the bedroom didn't have any curtains or blinds or anything yet. Nodding toward the window, Jonathan asked, "Did you see the box with the towels, or the one with the sheets? We should probably cover that up. At least until we can buy some curtains."

Leaning closer, Steve murmured, "What, don't feel like putting on a show for the lovely people of Chicago?”

“No, not at all,” Jonathan replied, finding the box he needed. 

After there were sheets on the mattress and an extra blanket duct taped over the window, Jonathan said, “Okay, now where were we?”

Steve grinned and pulled Jonathan into their bed.

Later on, after a few hours of lying in bed exhausted, Jonathan still hadn't fallen asleep. The apartment was quiet, except for Steve's snores. It was quiet, but there was this deafening static in his head that wouldn't leave him alone.

Deciding to give up on sleeping, Jonathan got out of bed and went into the living room. He started unpacking his box of books, lining them up on the built-in shelves by the front door. The apartment didn't have much in the way of furniture yet, but there were a couple of folding chairs and a card table in the kitchen. Eventually, once they got jobs and saved up a little, Jonathan figured they'd probably get a second-hand couch and a crappy TV.

None of that stuff mattered. They were just things. Except… Jonathan just hoped Steve wouldn't get resentful of how little they had. Steve hadn't grown up used to the fact that there were a lot of things he couldn't have, no matter how much he might have wanted them. He hadn't spent two summers mowing lawns just to be able to afford the camera in the pawn shop window. Not like Jonathan had.

Steve had done pretty well so far, but he hadn't been out from under his parents' roof much more than a year. What if it took them _ten_ years to make a comfortable living? Or even more? Would Steve get sick of living without all the finer things? Would he try to get back in his parents' good graces? Would he resent Jonathan? Would he _leave_?

Footsteps from the other room drew Jonathan's attention, and a second later, as if he'd been summoned, Steve was in the doorway.

"Go back to sleep," Jonathan told him, turning his attention back to the box of books.

"Un-uh." Steve yawned and made his way across the room. He stepped in close behind Jonathan and wrapped strong arms around him. "Can't sleep without you there."

And that was the thing. Every time Jonathan worried that he was getting in too deep, that this shared life of theirs was so good it had to be doomed to fall apart eventually, Steve would do something sweet, and Jonathan would fall even harder.

With a sigh, Jonathan gave Steve his hand and let him lead Jonathan back to bed. When they laid down, Steve put his arm across Jonathan's chest and a leg over Jonathan's thigh. Steve weighed him down. It should have felt smothering, especially when Steve fell back asleep and his limbs got heavier. It didn't. 

Steve's body on his made the deafening static noise occupying Jonathan's mind fall away. Focusing on the way Steve's breaths were long and slow finally made Jonathan feel tired, too. He fell asleep.

~*~

Nancy looked at her orientation schedule and frowned. Three entire days were blocked off with activities. Meagan, the RA sitting next to her in the dining hall for their all-floor dinner asked, "Something wrong?"

Holding up the schedule, Nancy asked, "So, if I was going to skip at least one of these, which would be the easiest to miss?"

"Eager for that college freedom?" Megan asked with a chuckle.

Shaking her head, Nancy told her, "My boyfriend's at UIC. I haven't seen him in a _month_ , and I'm–"

"Say no more," Meagan said with a laugh. "It's a bit of a trek to downtown from here, so that visit is going to take awhile. You could probably miss everything except the safety seminar tomorrow morning, as long as you're not too concerned about making friends right away."

Nancy shrugged. Friends were nice to have. She liked people. But she wasn't the same sort of people person as Steve was. And so far all her interactions with her new roommate, Beth, had been more cold than Nancy expected. "Friends are a little lower on my priority list at the moment," Nancy admitted with a nervous laugh. "I'll be back when I can."

She said goodbye to the girls around her and took off, putting away her cafeteria tray and heading for her room. When she got there, she dialed the number Jonathan had given her the week before.

After two rings, Jonathan's voice said, "Hello?"

A warm rush in her chest at hearing his voice, Nancy said, "It's me. I'm all moved in, my parents left. Can I come over?"

"How 'bout I come get you?" Jonathan offered. "Did you eat yet?"

"Sort of," Nancy told him, thinking of her half-eaten cafeteria meal. "But I could eat more. What did you have in mind?"

"I'll be there in half an hour."

It turned out what Jonathan had in mind was Nero's, the pizza restaurant a few blocks away from his and Steve's new place. "I really think you're going to like the waiter," Jonathan said with a grin as he pushed open the door.

The hostess at the front of the restaurant looked up and smiled. "Hey, new guy's friend! You're back."

"Can we get a table for two in Steve's section?" Jonathan asked, looking back at Nancy with an impish grin.

Nancy smiled back at him and as they were shown to their table, she asked, "When did this happen?"

"He just started on Wednesday," Jonathan told her, waiting until Nancy sat down until he took a seat. "Oh, and apparently in Chicago…" he waited until the hostess left. "You're _Steve's_ girlfriend, not mine."

"Shouldn't I have been included in that decision?" Nancy asked, getting settled into the chair across from Jonathan's. 

He nodded, saying, "One would think."

"I guess Steve figured it was his turn." Nancy reached under the table with her foot, brushing Jonathan's leg. "How late is he working?"

Looking at his watch, Jonathan told her, "Not too much longer. This place closes kind of early."

"Oh, shit!" Nancy heard a familiar voice from over her shoulder. When she looked back, Steve was setting down a tray of beverages. He lit up when she met his eyes and called, "I'll be right over. Don't go anywhere!"

She smiled as he apologized to his customers and passed out drinks. When he was done, he tucked his tray under his arm and hurried over. Nancy stood up to meet him, letting Steve give her a giant hug and a kiss on the lips. Still grinning, he said, "You're here!"

"I'm here," she replied, unable to contain her joy. "Now we only live a half hour apart, instead of four hours."

"You want something to eat?" he asked eagerly, like the only thing he wanted in the world was to take care of her. God, she'd missed him. 

"I'd like that."

She and Jonathan split a pizza, and when Steve got done with work, the three of them walked back to the apartment building together. Nancy felt like her skin was buzzing, and the two flights of stairs before Jonathan unlocked their door were agony.

The apartment was dark, but Nancy wasn't really interested in turning the light on and looking around. Not yet. She pulled Steve through the door with her and closed it behind him, urging him into a deep kiss. Jonathan stepped close behind her and Nancy sighed, turning to face him and kiss him next.

Feeling impatient and desperate, she pulled on Jonathan's shirt, getting it up over his head. "God, I missed you guys so much."

"We missed you, too," Steve said with his lips against the side of her neck. Somebody's hands undid the buttons of her blouse and someone else's pushed down her skirt. 

So frustrated she could almost scream with it, and panting to catch her breath, Nancy demanded, "I need someone inside me. Like, _right now_."

"Jesus," Jonathan whispered, kissing Nancy again. He walked backward, pulling her with him toward what Nancy assumed was the bedroom. 

Behind her, Nancy heard Steve's belt hit the floor, and then he plastered himself against her back. His skin against hers was hot, and he sucked on the side of her neck, making her cry out. In front of her, Jonathan stopped. He kicked off his pants and then tugged her down by the hand.

When there was a lot farther down to go than she was expecting, she asked, "Is your mattress on the floor?"

"Does that really matter right now?" Jonathan asked, crowding close to Nancy on the bed and putting his hands all over her. 

Steve joined them on Nancy's other side, pulling on Nancy's hips until she was on all fours, even as she kept kissing Jonathan. Then Steve sank into her in one long, slow push. She cried out against Jonathan's lips, overwhelmed by the sensation.

"Oh, fuck," Steve said, setting a quick pace. "Yeah, not gonna last very long."

"That's okay," Nancy replied, groaning again when Jonathan sat up, putting her arms over his shoulders and nibbling on her neck. "I'm not either."

His voice low in her ear, Jonathan asked, "Want me to touch you?"

That sounded like the best idea ever. Nancy nodded her head and told him, "Y-yeah. Yes. Oh my god."

Jonathan's fingers found her clit right away, rubbing and stroking it in time with Steve's thrusts. A minute later, and Nancy was gone, crying out against Jonathan's shoulder and pulling his hand away when she couldn't take it any longer.

Steve groaned and followed her over the edge.

Nancy felt desperate for Jonathan to come too, so she pushed him back against the bed and then ducked down to take his cock into her mouth. God, she'd even missed this. She'd especially missed the little noises Jonathan made when he started to lose control.

After Steve pulled away from her, he kept a hand on Nancy's back, then her shoulder as he crawled up the bed. Nancy heard him kiss Jonathan and then start talking. "Doesn't our girlfriend have the most amazing mouth, babe? Doesn't she make you feel like you're about to lose your mind? God, and we get to see her all the time now! Nance, he's getting close. He wants to come for you."

Redoubling her efforts, Nancy found Steve was right. Jonathan came, filling her mouth and throat, breathing heavy against Steve's chest. With a knowing little smile, Nancy didn't swallow the last mouthful. Instead, she got herself over to Steve and kissed him, pushing Jonathan's come into Steve's mouth with her tongue.

Steve groaned, sucking on her tongue and kissing her a few more times before letting her go. Amused, he said, "You're filthy, Nancy Wheeler."

"And you're adorable, Steve Harrington," she told him, sparing him one more kiss before switching over to kiss Jonathan some more.

"What do you think?" Jonathan asked as they settled down into the bed. "Can you stay the night?"

"Oh, I'm staying the night," she told him. "I have a thing I need to be back for in the morning, but for tonight, I'm staying right _here_."

Settling in against Nancy's back, Steve said, "We made you a key. You can come stay here whenever you want."

"Should stay forever," Jonathan mumbled, his heartbeat deep and steady under her palm. 

Sleepy after a long day of driving and moving and socializing, Nancy told them, "I will. I'll stay."


	2. Coping Mechanisms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Nancy realize something is wrong with Jonathan.

**_November 1986_ **

After his first class of the day, Jonathan made his way over to the Art building and down to the common use dark rooms in the basement. He checked in at the office, putting down his bag and saying to Gloria, "Hey. You got anything for me today?"

The lab manager handed him a basket with three rolls of film. "Prints of all of these."

"This is going to take awhile," he told her. "I guess I'll get started."

When Jonathan closed the darkroom door and flipped on the "In Use" light, the throbbing in his temples started to ease a little bit. So far, his classes had been pretty good – interesting at least – and he'd gotten a part-time job processing film in the art department photo lab for other departments. In theory, it was all great, but he'd also had a headache almost every day since the semester started, and it was starting to wear him down.

Nancy had first noticed him pressing at his head and frowning almost three weeks ago. He'd told her it was probably just fall allergies. Steve had noticed and asked if his classes were too hard. 

That wasn't it. His classes were fine. The art history and photography ones were great, actually. 

But this damn headache wouldn't go away, no matter how much aspirin he took.

Two hours later, when all the prints he needed to make were hanging around the darkroom, drying, Jonathan's headache was still there. He stopped by Gloria's desk to clock out, and she handed him a "Student Health Center" pamphlet. "Please, just go here."

Jesus, was he that obvious?

"Thanks," he said, pushing the pamphlet into his backpack. "I will."

He wouldn't. 

It was just a headache. He didn't need to spend his rent money on some doctor who would just tell him to take some painkillers and a nap.

Jonathan went to one more class, and then headed off campus and back home. As he came up the stairs, he heard music going, and hoped it wasn't coming from his place, even though it was one of Steve's favorite albums. 

God, his head hurt so much.

When he got to the landing, it was obvious that the music actually was coming from his place. Taking a deep breath, Jonathan steeled himself for the onslaught and opened the door. What he hadn't been expecting to see were four girls spread out around the living room, and Steve in the kitchen, wearing an apron (where did that even come from?) and scooping freshly-baked cookies off a tray.

"Jonathan!" Steve shouted over the music. "Guys, this is my roommate, Jonathan."

Jonathan made a half-hearted attempt at a wave, and then crossed the room to the stereo, turning the volume most of the way down. The screeching pounding in his head eased, but not completely. Steve came over to him with the plate of cookies. "Hey. We've got a group project we're working on. You want a cookie?"

Pouting at the fact that he couldn't just have Steve all to himself, Jonathan took one of the cookies, then wordlessly went into the bedroom, closing the door behind him.

He heard Steve tell the others, "Don't worry about him. He's probably got another headache. So, what did we think of for the last scenario?"

Jonathan laid down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling while he ate his cookie. It was so good that Jonathan legitimately felt pissed off at it. Then he realized that he'd forgotten to eat lunch. No wonder he felt so shitty.

Sighing, Jonthan summoned up his energy, put on less of a pissy face, and left the bedroom, heading through the living room, to the kitchen. He made himself a sandwich and sat at the little card table, eating it. When Steve noticed him, he said, "Oh, Jonathan! These are my friends from school. That's Jean, Sharon, Cory, and Stef. We're all in the same intro to education class."

His mouth still full of food, Jonathan said, "Hello."

The girl closest to him – Jonathan wasn't paying attention when Steve gave her name – asked, "So, what's Steve like as a roommate?"

Feeling just a little bit mean, Jonathan told them, "He snores."

Steve gave a fake gasp and threw a cookie at Jonathan, crying, "Liar!"

Jonathan caught the cookie and took a bite. "What, you want me to record it and prove it to you?"

Closest Girl laughed, and Jonathan found himself resenting the fact that she wasn't Nancy.

~*~

"Was that okay, that I said my group could come over to work on our project?" Steve asked when his classmates had all gone home. Jonathan looked miserable. "We'll study in the dorms or something next time."

"Don't worry about it," Jonathan insisted, setting down his book. "This is your place, too."

Steve sat next to Jonathan on the old futon that had become their couch, resting his head on Jonathan's shoulder. "Yeah, but I don't want to upset you or think that you can't come back here when you need to."

Jonathan pushed him by his face, saying, "You're a sap."

Steve didn't respond, instead pulling the pamphlet for the health center from Jonathan's stack of school papers on the futon. "You gonna go?"

"I don't know," Jonathan told him, taking the pamphlet back and opening it up. "I just keep thinking it'll go away on its own."

Steve didn't want to say out loud what he was really worried about when it came to Jonathan's headaches. It couldn't be anything too bad, right? It was just an adjustment to college. But what if it wasn't?

"Compromise?" Steve asked him.

"What are you thinking?"

Shrugging, Steve folded his fingers into Jonathan's. "If it's still there in a week, you'll go?"

"Deal," Jonathan said. 

Kissing Jonathan's temple, Steve said, "And maybe we'll do something fun over the weekend? You know, college isn't supposed to be all about studying and working."

"Okay, but something actually fun," Jonathan told him. "Like a movie. Not some stupid kegger house party."

Laughing, Steve told him, "Yeah, my classmates are all super-sweet aspiring teachers. I'm pretty sure most of them wouldn't know a kegger if they saw one."

"They're _all_ girls?" Jonathan asked him.

Steve nodded. "Well, most of them. I think there's four or five other guys in the freshman class."

"All those girls who came over today like you," Jonathan said with a shake of his head. "They wanna get in your pants."

Laughing, Steve took the book out of Jonathan's hand and straddled his lap. "Were you _jealous_?"

Jonathan shrugged, but that was as good as a yes. 

Steve took Jonathan's face in his hands and kissed him. "You don't have anything to worry about, baby. Those girls are all boring. Has any of them ever saved my life by being a badass? _No_."

That got a laugh out of Jonathan. "When was I a badass?"

"You used your _hands_ ," Steve told him, picking up one of Jonathan's hands and kissing it, "to jumpstart my heart after it stopped." He kissed Jonathan's other hand, bringing them both to his chest. Then he kissed Jonathan on the lips. "You're way more important to me than some classmate I've known for five fucking minutes."

Jonathan sighed. He got his hands free of Steve’s hold and pressed his fingers to his temples. "Sorry. You're just so friendly," he told Steve, pulling him closer by his hips. "I forget that friendliness doesn't mean as much to you as it does for me."

"Anti-social _freak_ ," Steve teased him, but it followed it up with several nice, long kisses so Jonathan would know he was kidding.

~*~

"How's the article coming?" Nancy's editor, Brian, asked her as she sat at one of the typewriters, copying out her hand-written notes.

"Good," she told him, finishing out the sentence. "I'm almost done. You have a new assignment for me?"

"Depends on whether this needs rewrites or not," he said, watching over her shoulder as she typed out the last few lines. "Where did you learn to type this fast?"

"I interned at the Hawkins Post two summers ago," she told him. "Mostly they just had me fetching coffee and lunches, but sometimes they also had me typing out the articles."

She didn't mention the part about how a monster from another dimension had taken over her boss's body, and then her boyfriend had killed him. It wasn't exactly relevant information, she thought. 

Nancy hit the enter key one last time, then rolled the paper out of the typewriter. Handing it to Brian, she said, "So, what's my assignment?"

Brian rolled his eyes at her, but he also grinned. He read it over before saying, "Yeah, this is good."

Nancy waited expectantly.

"Barry Dean got meningitis and had to drop out for the semester," Brian said.

Nancy took a sharp breath. "You're putting me on the student council beat?"

Brian nodded. "Third meeting of the semester is tonight at seven. I want a full report in the morning."

"Got it," Nancy said, excited to finally have such an important assignment. But then she remembered that it was Thursday. "Oh, shit."

"What?" Brian asked. "You have something more important going on? I can give this assignment to someone else."

"No!" Nancy cried, catching Brian by the arm before he could turn away. "It's just a date with my boyfriend. I'll get a raincheck."

A smile spread across Brian's face. "That's my girl! Now, go bring me back all the details."

As she watched Brian walk away, Nancy's heart sank. She hadn't seen either of her boys since Monday morning, and it was almost the weekend again. Everything had started piling up and she'd promised she'd be done with all of it by that night.

But what was she supposed to do? Break a promise about a little thing, like not seeing them all week when they knew they could go months apart and come back together as strong as ever? Or give up on the first chance she'd had all semester to be the one freshman on the paper writing the important stories?

Nancy picked up the bullpen phone and called the apartment. The answering machine picked up, so she left a message expressing her deep regret, and promises to make it up to them. She hoped future assignments weren't going to make a liar out of her.

~*~

When Jonathan got back to the apartment, he noticed there was a message left on the machine. As he played it, he realized that he wasn't at all surprised Nancy had cancelled on them again. It was fine. He knew college was going to be busy for all of them. And he knew that Nancy was going to a tough school with a national reputation. Of course she would have less time to devote to their relationship.

He just wished she would stop making plans she knew she might have to break. It reminded him of Lonnie, never showing up for visitation when he said he was going to. 

Christ, his _head_.

He'd told Steve that it had gotten better, but that had been a lie. The headaches had been getting worse. When they'd first started, Jonathan had tried all of the over-the-counter painkillers, but none of them seemed to help at all. 

The thing was, the pain was hard to describe. It wasn't sharp or pounding or intensely focused in one spot behind his eye or at the back of his skull. It was like this diffuse sort of pressure. It didn't _actually_ hurt when he tried to focus on it, but somehow it still _hurt_. It wore on him over the course of the day like pain would. It just got so hard to deal with, after he'd been dealing with it all fucking day. All fucking month.

Looking for something he could make for dinner, Jonathan opened the freezer. He found a bottle of vodka that Steve had one of the upperclassmen buy for some sort of party, used some of, and then stashed the rest for another occasion. 

Could this be an occasion?

Would it even help?

Feeling more than a little desperate, Jonathan took the bottle out of the freezer and twisted off the cap. He took three big swallows, trying not to notice the way it felt hot and cold at the same time as it went down his throat. When the smell finally hit his nose, it made him gag, but the alcohol stayed down. Like bad-tasting medicine, he realized.

Jonathan put the cap back on the bottle and put it back where he'd found it.

Three swallows. It wasn't that much. 

If it worked, great. If it didn't, he'd think about maybe going to see the doctor.

Ten minutes later, he realized it was getting easier to think. He made himself some dinner, took two more swallows of the vodka, then attacked his homework. By the time Steve got home from work, the pressurized feeling started to come back. 

Jonathan thought about taking another few swallows while Steve was in the shower, just so he could get some sleep. Then he realized that was the same sort of rationalization Lonnie used to make about going on benders that lasted for days and poured all the grocery money down the drain.

And now what? 

Jonathan was letting himself use the same excuses?

He went to the kitchen, intent on pouring the rest of the vodka down the drain. 

Except…

Except what if things got bad again? What if he needed it?

Hating himself, Jonathan closed the freezer. He went to bed and pretended to go to sleep.

At some point, the pretending became real and Jonathan passed out.

He woke up the next morning twenty minutes before class and with a sharp pain in his head. There wasn't time to do anything else other than chug a few more swallows of vodka and run to class.

~*~

When his break came around, Steve grabbed a couple of pizza slices from the "mistakes" pile in the kitchen, and went out to sit with Nancy in the mostly-empty dining room. It was a Monday night during midterms, so things had been slow. On the one hand, Steve thought it was nice to have a bit of a break from working his ass off. On the other, his tip envelope was sadly skinny.

Looking up from her work, Nancy smiled at Steve. "Hey. Any reason in particular you wanted me to study here tonight?" She looked around at the mostly-empty restaurant. "Just to keep you company?"

"I wanted to talk to you about Jonathan," Steve admitted, taking a long drink of water to wet his parched throat.

With that concerned furrow in her brow, Nancy asked, "What about him?"

"I don't think he's doing good." Steve sighed, knowing that he needed to eat, but feeling too sick about Jonathan to actually be hungry. "I know he's quiet, but the past couple of days, he's barely talked, even to me. Has he been talking to you?"

Setting down her pen, Nancy shook her head. "I mean, he's mostly been asleep by the time I've been able to come over. Except for when we were together Saturday night, I haven't really seen much of him." Looking down at her hands, she muttered, "Shit. I'm the worst girlfriend."

"You're just busy," Steve assured her. "And I think he's trying to hide whatever it is. You remember those headaches he was getting?"

Nancy nodded. "He said they were gone."

"I don't think they are."

With a deep sigh, Nancy let her head fall down onto her arms. Her face buried, she asked, "What are we going to do? Make him go to the doctor?"

"For starters," Steve agreed. He took a few more bites of pizza, chewing thoughtfully. "I think the worst part is that he thinks he's hiding it from me. He thinks I'm that stupid, that I'm not going to notice how different he's been acting." Looking over at Nancy, he said, "You know I care about you, right? That I care about how you're doing?"

Reaching across the table, Nancy put her hand over his. "I know," she insisted. "I care about you, too. _And_ Jonathan. Maybe he's embarrassed about something. Or maybe it's something he thinks he can't talk to you about because you guys live together. I'll see if I can get through to him."

"Thanks, Nance," Steve said with a sigh. "I appreciate it."

~*~

Nancy waited just inside the front doors of her dorm the entire time between when Jonathan called to say he was leaving his apartment and when he walked through them. Jumping up, she met him and gave him a hug. "Thanks for driving up."

"Yeah, no problem," Jonathan said, returning Nancy's hug. He followed her into the elevators and stood close to her when the doors closed. 

"I just feel like I haven't seen much of you lately," she told him, clasping his hand. "When Beth said she was leaving early for Thanksgiving, I couldn't help but take advantage of the opportunity."

He smiled, but there was a heaviness to his shoulders, and when she led him down the hallway to her dorm room, his steps were slower than she was used to. 

"How were your classes today?" she asked as she unlocked her room and led him inside. 

"Fine," he told her. "Passed my art history test."

"That's good," she insisted, closing and locking the door behind them. "Any historical artists you're really liking right now?"

Jonathan shrugged. "We're mostly covering old catholic art right now. Lots of saints. Not really my thing."

Nancy chuckled. "Yeah, mine neither." 

She sat him down on her bed before sitting next to him and grabbing her homework. "How much more do you have left to do?"

"A little," he said. He looked down, but she could see him hiding a wince.

Thinking he might not appreciate being asked if he was okay, Nancy would just observe for now. Let him get more comfortable in the environment. Moving closer and putting her chin on his shoulder, Nancy looked up at Jonathan and asked, "Do you want to play a studying game?"

Sighing, he said, "Not really."

Okay, studying games had always been more of Steve's thing than Jonathan's, but usually he would indulge her if she asked. "I have flashcards for my history class. How about every time I get one wrong," she leaned closer and kissed him, "I take off one piece of clothing?"

"If you want to get naked, just get naked," he told her, sliding his hand up the back of her shirt.

Well, it was a little bit of a reaction, anyway. "Okay," she said, reaching down and pulling off her shirt. "Maybe we'll study better afterward."

Jonathan gave her a little smile and set his bag on the floor before taking his own shirt off. At least they still had this.

Nancy pushed at Jonathan until he was lying down, and laid down next to him. After a few urgent kisses, he really perked up, putting his hands on her, holding her close. They made love laying on their sides, facing each other. It wasn't the best angle, but it felt nice to go slow. It felt sweet. Nancy watched Jonathan's face, and saw the pained furrow of his brow ease. She kissed him, and ran her hand over his skin, and pushed back against him until they were both coming.

Pressing her forehead to Jonathan's, Nancy told him, "I love you."

"I love you too," he insisted, moving to bury his face next to Nancy's neck, like he was using her to hide away from the rest of the world. 

Maybe he was.

He fell asleep, so Nancy carefully crawled out of bed from beside him, pulled on her underwear and shirt, and took her homework over to her desk. 

She had almost finished by the time Jonathan woke with a start. "You're okay," she told him, reaching over to put her hand on his ankle. "It's okay. I'm still here."

Jonathan nodded. Then he started to get dressed. When he put on his jacket, Nancy assured him, "You can sleep here tonight. You don't need to go."

He looked around, closed his eyes, and sighed. Shaking his head, he told her, "No, I've got an early class in the morning. I should drive back now."

"Okay," she told him, standing up and pulling on a pair of pants so she could walk him to the elevator. There she gave Jonathan a hug. "Drive safe. Call me when you get home, okay?"

"Sure," he said, giving Nancy a kiss. He got on the elevator and left.

There was definitely something very wrong.


	3. Raw Nerves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things with Jonathan's condition finally come to a head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: There are some domestic violence-adjacent scenes in this chapter.

As Jonathan drove back home through the dark and icy city streets, he knew he'd disappointed Nancy. He just didn't know what else to do. How could he behave like himself when it was getting harder and harder to remember what that used to be like?

During the drive, it felt like his emotions changed every block. There was sadness, anger, resignation, but then bright spots of happy before they were washed away again. Three years ago he would have given anything to sleep with Nancy Wheeler in her dorm room bed. Hell, he would have given anything just to hold her hand. 

Now all he could do was disappoint her and then run. 

What a waste he was turning out to be. 

He hadn't even finished his homework, or helped Nancy study, or anything except maybe use her to feel something a little like he used to, before that pressure on his head came crashing down again.

It took a little driving around to find a street parking spot, so by the time Jonathan let himself back into the apartment, Steve was already home. Jonathan kissed him and gave some sort of answers about how Nancy was doing. He didn't really pay attention.

He called Nancy, so she wouldn’t worry, but made the call as brief as he could, saying, “I’ve still got homework. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” she insisted.

Exhaustion tugged his eyelids down, begged him to put his head on his pillow, but the homework he hadn’t done yet was due the next day. He plowed through it at the kitchen table, sitting across from Steve and trying not to notice Steve sneaking glances at him and worrying.

Once his work was finished, Jonathan went over to Steve and pulled on his chair until Steve's lap was free enough to put his head on. He let Steve pet his hair, and ask him if he was okay, and for once, Jonathan admitted out loud, "No."

"What do you want to do about it?" Steve asked him gently.

Anger flared through Jonathan. He didn't want to be treated gently. He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve anything good. He deserved hard, and rough, and painful.

As if trying to prove the thought, Jonathan got Steve's pants open and down around his ankles, then stroked his cock until he was hard. He swallowed Steve down, his jaw aching, his lungs burning. 

"Baby, babe," Steve said, still so gentle. 

_Fuck that_. 

Jonathan pulled Steve's hips forward and pressed them down into the chair. He sucked and he bobbed his head and he pulled Steve's orgasm out of him, even when Steve tugged him by the hair and asked him to slow down.

Before even looking up at Steve, Jonathan regretted what he'd just done. "Sorry," he said, letting go of Steve and wiping off his mouth. He sat back on his heels, shame making his face feel hot. "I don't know why I did that."

When he finally looked up at Steve and saw his expression, it made his eyes tear up. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I'm not hurt," Steve insisted, pulling up his pants and sitting down on the floor next to Jonathan. He pulled Jonathan into his arms and insisted, "I'm not hurt, Jonathan. I'm just worried about you."

"Then why do you feel hurt?" The words slipped out before Jonathan knew what he was saying. That couldn't have been what he meant, could it? "I mean, why do you _look_ hurt? Why do you let me be mean to you?"

Shaking his head, Steve said, "That wasn't mean. That was just … a little rough. I would have stopped you if I wasn't into it."

"Still," Jonathan told him. "You don't deserve to be treated like that. Especially not by me. I don't…" He sighed, wiping a few tears from his eyes.

"You don't what?"

Jonathan had to take a shaky breath and let it out before he could speak again. He whispered the thought that had been on his mind every day for the past week. "I don't want to end up like my dad."

Shaking his head, Steve asked, "Hey, where did that come from?"

"Just…" Jonathan shrugged, wanting to confess about the vodka, but too ashamed to get it out. Eventually, he landed on saying, "He used to shove us around. Me especially. Take his shit out on me. I don't want to do that to you."

"Then _talk_ to me," Steve insisted. "Tell me what's going on."

Jonathan leaned closer to Steve and admitted, "My head still hurts."

Steve pulled him close, hugging him and kissing his head. "Yeah, I know."

"You know?"

"You're a shitty liar."

Jonathan's stomach dropped. "I didn't want you to worry."

"So you lie to me?" Steve sighed. "Babe, you grew up with a guy that pushed you around. I grew up with one who lied to my face all the time. Lied to my mom, too. I learned how to spot the lies early on."

Jesus. He'd lied hoping to make Steve worry less, but instead Steve just had all the worry on top of realizing Jonathan had lied to him about it. God, he felt shitty. "I'm sorry."

"C'mon," Steve said, getting up onto his feet before reaching down to help Jonathan up too. "Let's go to bed."

Thinking about the worried, buzzing feeling in his head and how he wasn't going to be able to sleep without some help, Jonathan pictured the vodka in the freezer. He hadn't had any today. It's probably why he'd felt so shitty. Just a little bit more couldn't hurt, right? Just to help him sleep?

"I'm just gonna get some water," Jonathan told Steve. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

He took down a clean glass and opened the freezer. About a quarter of the bottle was left, and Jonathan didn’t know how the hell he was going to replace it. Still, he twisted off the cap, took a few swallows from the bottle, and then put it back. To justify opening the freezer, he cracked a couple of ice cubes from the tray and put those in his water glass, then he filled the water from the tap and drank some of it. 

God, Steve was going to know. He was going to find out. Jonathan wasn’t smart enough to cover his tracks. He wasn’t good enough for Steve, much less Nancy. 

Still, the static in Jonathan’s head eased off. He climbed into bed with Steve and fell asleep.

~*~

After Jonathan left for class in the morning, Steve held back. His first class wasn’t for another hour, and he wanted to call Nancy about the shit that had gone down the night before. 

He grabbed the cordless and dialed her number, holding the phone with his shoulder as he finished getting dressed. 

“If this isn’t an emergency, please go away,” Nancy said when she answered the phone. 

“Babe, it’s me. I gotta talk to you.”

“Hey, Steve,” Nancy said, her voice changing as she stretched. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep much.”

“Yeah, me neither,” he told her, buttoning his jeans and then heading to the bathroom to finish doing his hair. “I finally got somewhere with Jonathan, though.”

Things on her end shifted around a bit. “What happened?”

As Steve went through the door to the bathroom, he stubbed his pinky toe on the door jamb. “Ow! Son of a bitch!”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Steve told her, clenching his teeth as the pain faded. Limping back through the bedroom to go get some ice for his foot, he said, “Got him to admit he’s still having headaches. But I don’t think it’s just that. His emotions are all…”

“Weird, yeah. All over the place,” Nancy said as Steve reached the kitchen. 

He pulled the half-full ice cube tray out of the freezer and cracked the cubes out onto one of the dish towels. “What do you think is going on? He says school is fine. I mean, he’s not making any friends, but he didn’t really make more than one or two last year either.”

“Steve,” Nancy said, her voice really serious. 

“Yeah?” He sat down at the table and held the ice on his foot. 

“What do you know about Post-traumatic Stress?”

“That’s the thing…” Steve scratched his still-damp hair. “The thing they thought Will had, right? When he kept getting those episodes my Senior year?”

“Yeah.”

Why would Nancy bring that up? Unless… 

“You think that’s what’s going on with Jonathan?”

He could hear the gulp Nancy made, and he pictured her crying. The thickness of her voice only confirmed it. “It’s been close to a year since you almost died, Steve. Anniversaries are hard. You know how much trouble I had a year after Barb…”

“But I _didn’t_ die.”

“Don’t you think it would be traumatic if you had to spend five whole minutes with Jonathan laying lifeless in front of _you_ while you tried to keep him alive?”

“Damn,” Steve whispered, shuddering as he pictured it. “Yeah, that would be rough.”

“I mean, trouble sleeping? Nightmares? Flashbacks? Irritability? Mood swings? Apathy? Those are all symptoms.”

Steve put his head down in his hands. It all fit. “I mean, that’s–” He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “We all went through that. After the first time.”

Nancy sighed. “Yeah.”

“But he’s got it again?”

“Still.”

“Still?”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.” 

Steve got up, needing to do something productive. He filled the ice tray with new water. “What should we do about it? Do we have to bring him to the hospital or something?”

“Maybe we can ask his mom? At Thanksgiving? She’ll know what to do.”

“Yeah, can’t exactly tell a regular-old shrink about this shit.” Steve opened the freezer to put the ice cube tray back in. “Joyce will–”

Steve noticed the vodka bottle in the freezer. It had been three quarters full a week ago when it was left over from a midterms-are-over party at Stef’s place. Now it had maybe a fifth of the bottle left. 

“Steve?”

“He’s been drinking,” Steve told her. Pissed off, he unscrewed the cap and dumped the rest into the sink. “He’s been drinking, and he’s been hiding it from me! That can’t be good.”

“Oh my god,” Nancy sniffled. “It’s _so_ not good.”

“His dad used to drink.” Steve sat down hard in the closest folding chair. “It runs in families, right? What if he…? We can’t lose him to this. Not to _this_! Not after everything we’ve survived.” 

“I’ll come over after class, okay? We’ll figure this out.”

Steve looked at the clock on the microwave. “Yeah, shit. I gotta go. I’ve got a test. We’ll figure this out?”

“Definitely,” she assured him. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Nance.” 

Steve hung up the phone and spent a minute gathering his thoughts. This had been happening right under his nose. Yeah, maybe he’d noticed something was wrong, but until recently he hadn’t tried to dig for it. He’d been distracted with work and school and new friends and a new city. 

One of the most important people in Steve’s life had been drowning, and Steve almost _missed_ it. 

God damn it.

~*~

“Just admit that you want to go home early for Thanksgiving,” Brian said to Nancy as they walked through the newspaper offices. “There’s no shame in it. We all got a little homesick as freshmen.”

Nancy got in front of Brian, stuck her finger in his face, and said, “I have a fucking family emergency, Brian. I was hoping you might be capable of a little human compassion, but if not, so be it. I will dictate my article over the fucking phone if I have to.”

Brian went wide-eyed and a little pale. “N-no, it’s fine,” he said, totally backtracking. “You should go. Just give me your notes and I’ll finish it.”

“And the by-line?”

“We’ll share it.”

Nancy gave Brian a grateful nod. “Thank you. I swear, I’ll make it up to you when I can.”

Brian sighed, but then he gave her a smile. “Get out of here, Wheeler. Come back on Monday ready to bust your ass.”

“You got it,” Nancy said with a relieved sigh. “See you then.”

Half an hour later, she had her duffle bag packed and she was on the bus toward downtown. 

When she made it to the apartment, Nancy let herself in. No one else was around, and she remembered that Jonathan and Steve both had afternoon classes on Tuesdays. Still feeling guilty that she hadn't been around as much as she'd been meaning to, Nancy was kind of relieved that she was the first one back to the apartment. This way she'd be waiting on them, not the other way around.

Between finishing the work that needed to be done before the Thanksgiving break and worrying about Jonathan, Nancy hadn't slept much the night before. When she wandered into the bedroom, the weariness caught up with her. She kicked off her shoes and hung her jacket on one of the hooks by the door. 

Then Nancy let herself curl up in Steve and Jonathan's bed. It smelled so much like them, that she instantly felt sleepy, and safe. She burrowed into the pillows, intending on just closing her eyes for a few minutes, and fell asleep

~*~

When Jonathan got back from class, he found Nancy's bag near the door and Nancy asleep in the bed. He decided not to wake her. There was one more paper he had to finish writing and turn in before he could leave town for Thanksgiving. His head hurt and he figured just a little bit more of that vodka would help him focus enough to finish it.

Jonathan went to the kitchen and opened the freezer, only to find the vodka gone. "No," he whispered softly to himself.

_Shit. Where could it be?_

Jonathan looked in the fridge and in all the cupboards, but didn't find it. Then he lifted the lid of the trash can.

There it was.

Empty.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!_

If he couldn't finish this paper, he was going to fail the class. He was going to lose his scholarship. He was going to lose _everything_.

The apartment door opened and Jonathan froze, the vodka bottle in his hand, as Steve came into the apartment. Steve took one look at him, sighed, and closed the door behind him.

"Did you do this?" Jonathan asked, startled by the volume of his own voice.

"Yeah," Steve said, matching Jonathan's confrontational tone. He dropped his stuff by the door and came over to stand right in front of Jonathan. "I poured it out. You don't need that shit."

"How the _hell_ ," Jonathan said, watching himself push Steve's shoulder, "do you have any clue what I need?"

Steve rubbed at his shoulder with a deep frown. "I know you better than anyone, Jonathan. I love you."

"If you loved me, why would you do this to me?" Jonathan insisted, holding up the bottle. He tossed it over into the sink. It clattered loudly, but it didn't break. "Can't you see how much I need it?"

Steve didn't move, but Jonathan saw a shift in him. He pitied Jonathan. "Look, I'm sorry I brought it into the apartment in the first place. I should have known better."

Nancy came out from the bedroom, and Jonathan saw it on her, too. Pity.

_What self-righteous assholes!_

"Why should you have known better, Steve?" Jonathan demanded. "Because of my dad? You weren't there. You only know what I've told you. So shut up, because it was completely different with him!"

Nancy put herself between Jonathan and Steve, her hands up defensively. She was scared? Of what? Him?

It was just an argument.

Her eyes flicking over to Jonathan's right, she said, "Jonathan, you need to stop."

That's when Jonathan realized he had his hand balled into a tight fist and raised. He'd been ready to hit Steve, hadn't he?

Cold terror and regret quashed his anger and he lowered his fist. "Holy shit. I'm so–"

If he couldn't trust himself around Steve and Nancy, he couldn't trust himself around _anyone_.

Jonathan brushed past them, heading for the door. Neither of them tried to stop him, but when Jonathan tried to close the door behind him, they were both right there, in the way.

With a huff, Jonathan left the door open and started down the stairs. Steve kept pace with him, just a few stairs behind, and Nancy closed the door, catching up by the time they left the building.

"Where are we going?" Steve asked, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with Jonathan on his left. Nancy kept up on his right.

"I don't know," Jonathan told them. "Someplace quieter. I need to think."

"About what?" Nancy asked him, and at least now she felt more curious than pitying.

"Anything," Jonathan told her. "Without it, my thoughts don't make sense anymore. It's like… It's like…" Jonathan stopped at the corner to wait for the crosswalk light to change. Cold, he stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Like what?" Steve asked, putting a hand on Jonathan's back.

"Like they're not mine," he admitted, finally realizing it for himself, too. "Like they belong to somebody else."

"Who?" Nancy asked him, following when Joanthan crossed the street.

He shook his head, and turned in the direction of Skinner park. “I don’t know.”

Nancy took Jonathan’s hand, and Steve walked so his shoulder brushed against Jonathan’s. It helped. Walking helped too. It was cloudy, so there wasn’t much sun, but the air was cold. It felt kind of nice in Jonathan’s lungs. Refreshing. 

His head was still pounding. 

The park was pretty empty, likely due to the weather, and Jonathan walked to the center of it. Standing in the outfield between three different baseball diamonds, he felt like he could finally breathe. Jonathan sat down on the frost-damp grass and put his head in his hands. 

The longer he sat there, blocking the light from his eyes and only hearing a few cars on the streets encircling the park, and the way Steve’s shoes crunched in the grass as he shifted from foot to foot, the pounding began to ease. 

Jonathan cleared his throat. 

He said, “It’s–it’s like when you hit your funny bone, and it makes your whole arm throb and tingle and your skin crawl. But it’s inside my head.”

Nancy crouched down beside Jonathan, putting her arm across his back and pressing a kiss to his head. “Please let us take you to the doctor.” She was scared for him. 

“Honestly, I’m scared too,” he said, still covering his eyes. “What if I go and they find something?” Steve shifted, and Jonathan knew what he was going to say. Pointing at Steve without opening his eyes, he said, “I know it’s stupid, and I know _you’d_ rather know if something was trying to kill you but I just wanted to get through one more day, okay? One more day. And then we can go home and take a break and I’ll feel better. That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway.”

Steve crouched down next to him and asked in a soft voice, “Do you want me to go get you some more? Just for today?”

Jonathan’s voice cracked when he said, “Yes.” He swallowed the clenched-up feeling in his throat. “But you shouldn’t. I know it’s not good for me. I know what it’s turning me into.”

“You’re not him,” Nancy insisted, rubbing Jonathan’s back. 

Jonathan scoffed. “Yeah, not _yet_.” 

“Not ever,” Steve insisted. 

Eyes still buried in his hands, Jonathan shrugged. “Guess we’ll see. If I can avoid driving you guys away for that long.”

Nancy told him, “We’re not going anywhere.”

After sitting quietly for a few minutes, Jonathan said, "I think I'm feeling a little better now." He opened his eyes and looked up, but it was too much light all at once. "Ow, fuck. Maybe not."

"Here," Steve said, crouching down next to Jonathan and putting something on his face. Glasses.

"Your sunglasses?" Jonathan guessed, still not willing to open his eyes.

"It'll help," Steve assured him. "Let's go home, huh?"

"Yeah," Jonathan said, letting them get him to his feet. He opened his eyes more carefully, and Steve was right. The glasses did help.


	4. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Nancy bring Jonathan home.

"Fine," Jonathan sighed, laying back on the bed with his hand over his eyes. "Read me back that last part again?"

Steve watched as Nancy helped Jonathan finish the paper he was worried about. 

All Steve could worry about was Jonathan. It took every ounce of self-control he had not to throw Jonathan over his shoulder and force him into going to the emergency room. But no, he had to wait until Jonathan finished his stupid assignment, and he had to wait for Joyce to call them back, and, and…

Steve had never been very good at waiting for anything. He much preferred the go-out-and-get-it tactic. It made him feel useful, gave him something to do. Sitting here, watching Jonathan stumble his way through dictating his paper to Nancy made Steve feel useless. Like a failure.

He'd _failed_ Jonathan.

The phone rang and Steve was on his feet like a sprinter off the starting blocks. He grabbed it and said, "Hello?"

"Steven, it's me." Joyce sounded tired. 

God, what was he doing laying this at her feet? He should have been able to take care of Jonathan himself. That was supposed to be his responsibility now. His and Nancy's. 

"Hey, Mom. Hey. Thanks for calling back."

"What's going on?" she asked. "The secretary said it was urgent? Did something happen?"

"There's–" Steve tried to explain, but he tripped over his words and had to start again. "Jonathan's sick. I don't know what to do."

Her voice turned from tired to concerned instantly. "Sick? How sick? What are his symptoms? Fever?"

"No," Steve told her, walking around to the kitchen and sinking down in the chair. "He's been having headaches. Like, migraines or whatever. Mood swings, and they’re getting worse. It's just it's all day, every day now and I don't know what to do. I wanted to take him to the hospital, but Nancy said it could be traumatic stress, and how the hell are we supposed to explain all the shit he's been through to a normal doctor?" Steve's nose started running and he sniffled, pushing at it to get it to fucking stop. He hadn’t mentioned the drinking, and maybe he should have, but it just felt like too much. 

"Oh, oh, sweetie," Joyce said with a sigh. "You said it's been getting worse? How long has it been going on?"

Steve sighed, putting his head in his hand and admitting, "He won't say. I think it's been almost as long as we've been here."

"Is there something wrong with the apartment?"

"I don't think so," Steve said with a shrug. "I feel fine. I mean, I'm worried about him, but no headaches or anything."

Joyce hummed thoughtfully. "I will make some calls. You stay right there, and I'll call you back right away."

"Okay," Steve said. "Thanks, Mom."

"Anytime, sweetheart."

Steve hung up the phone and dried his eyes. Because he didn't have anything better to do, he started cleaning up the kitchen. There were a few dishes to wash and put away, some old food in the fridge that had to go, an empty box of cereal sitting on the counter. Jonathan shouldn't have to worry about any of this shit. 

He just had to…

He had to get better. Because what if he didn't?

What if it ended up being just Steve and Nancy? Without Jonathan? How would that even work? Would it even work at all? Steve wasn't sure. He couldn't remember how things had been before.

Steve wiped down the counters and took out the trash, working methodically. He almost wished he was actually scheduled to work today, but he wasn't scheduled for tonight, and he'd taken off for the rest of the week. There was nothing left to busy himself with.

The only option was to go lay in bed next to Jonathan, rub his arm while he and Nancy tried to finish his goddamn paper, and wait.

Eventually, the phone rang. Again, Steve jumped to his feet and got it just as it rang a second time. "Hi, yes. I'm still here."

"Steve," said Joyce. "I want you to put Jonathan in your car and come home, okay? I've got someone from Scott Air Force Base ready to take a look at him."

"Okay," Steve said. Finally, there was a plan of action. "Okay. I'll get him there as soon as I can."

"Promise me you'll drive safely."

"I will," Steve promised her. "We'll be there soon."

Steve already had his bag packed for the long weekend, and Nancy had brought hers. He figured that while they finished Jonathan's paper, Steve could get Jonathan's things packed for him. It didn't take long. Steve knew what he liked to wear and what things he would want to bring. 

With the essentials out of the way, Steve brought the book Jonathan had been pretending to read for a month, and like eight of his favorite mix tapes. And his camera. As soon as he was done putting those in the bag, Nancy came out of the bedroom, paper in her hands.

"Done!" she announced, before looking at the clock and wincing. "We have to go by campus and drop this off. The building closes in twenty minutes." 

"Yeah, fine. Let's do it," Steve nodded, anxious to be underway. "Let's go!"

Nancy gave Steve her bag, saying, "Go bring the car around, would you?"

"Sure." Steve gave Nancy a kiss, put her bag on his shoulder along with Jonathan's and his own, and just barely remembered to bring his coat as well. Outside the apartment door, he ran into the neighbor, Claire.

"Hey, Steve!" she said with a smile that seemed a little less than innocent. "What's going on?"

"Sorry," he told her, already halfway down the first flight of stairs. "Can't talk. Have a nice Thanksgiving!"

~*~

Nancy held Jonathan's hand as she led him from the car up to the humanities building. "I think we'll be okay," she told him. "They're not supposed to close the building for another five minutes."

He doubled over, holding his head with both hands. "Fuck. Ow."

"Do you want me to run ahead?" she asked, her heart racing. She could see the humanities building, but at the pace they were going, there was no way they were going to make it. "Remind me the professor's name again?"

"Professor Grant," Jonathan told her, letting out a breath as he got himself upright again. He squinted across the quad and pointed. "Actually, that's him." 

Nodding, Nancy made sure she had Jonathan's paper in a tight grip, and she ran toward the man Jonathan pointed out. When she got closer, she called out, "Professor Grant!"

He turned, and Nancy knew she had the right man. 

"Professor Grant! Hi!" She tried to catch her breath as she approached him, and hoped she wasn't coming off as crazed as she felt.

"Sorry, miss. I don't recognize you," the professor said. "Are you in one of my classes?"

"No," she assured him. "Sorry. My friend, Jonathan Byers is in your Lit 103 class. He's having a bit of a medical emergency and he won't be in class tomorrow. He wanted me to make sure you got his paper." 

She handed over the folder, which the professor took, opening it and reading the first few lines. "Well, that's very dedicated of him," the professor said, closing the folder and looking back at Nancy. "And you must be a very good friend."

Nodding, Nancy said, "Yeah. Good friend. Very good friend. Is this okay? Turning in the paper early? He won't let me take him to the doctor unless you say it's okay."

The professor rolled his eyes. " _Freshmen_." He gave Nancy a smile, patted her arm, and said, "Yes, it's fine. Byers, you said?"

Nancy nodded.

"Yes, I remember which one he is now. Tell him I don't want to see him in class until he's recovered. Okay?"

Grateful, Nancy gave the professor a smile and said, "Okay. I will. Thank you!"

With that, she ran back across the quad, and found Jonathan sitting on a bench with his head between his hands. "You're all good, baby," she told him, pulling on his arm and getting him up onto his feet. "Let's get you home."

As they walked, Jonathan leaned against Nancy and muttered, "You're too good to me. Too good _for_ me. I don't deserve this."

"Don't say that," Nancy told him. "I wouldn't be doing this if you didn't deserve it."

Jonathan hummed, leaning on her a little more.

"What, you don't believe me?" she asked, stopping and turning to look at him. "You're in pain, Jonathan. Real, horrible pain, and you know what? Every time I look at you, _I feel it too_. Maybe not the same as you do, but I love you so much." She sniffled and told herself it was the cold air. "I love you so much that seeing you in pain puts me in pain, okay? Please let me help you."

Jonathan swallowed and nodded, but he didn't look up at her. 

“Let’s go home.”

~*~

For the first few hours of the drive, Jonathan laid in the back seat of the Omni, curled in on himself and blocking with his hand the shine from the streetlights flicking by above him. The car was mostly silent as Steve drove and Nancy sat in the passenger seat, biting her nails. 

Jonathan could practically feel them worrying about him. He was worried about himself, too. He hated the things the pain had made him do, the things it had made him rationalize, the way it became so much easier to argue with and almost hurt the people he loved. 

Things couldn’t go on like this, and Jonathan prayed that they wouldn’t have to. 

But the thing was, the further they got from Chicago, the less his head hurt. All the stress and the pain melted away, but it left him with a sinking feeling that all this shit wasn’t because something was wrong with him. His head was trying to kill him because he was weak. He wasn’t good enough for school. No one else got so stressed out that they invented headaches. And for what? Attention? Sympathy?

God, he was such a loser. He still didn’t know why Nancy and Steve put up with him. They were complete saints, and they were _his_. The universe had definitely made a mistake to allow him to be so lucky! 

Now the scales were balancing, weren’t they?

Still, as the pain eased, so did a lot of these thoughts. Jonathan found himself sitting up in the back seat, putting his feet down on the floor. He was bored, so he reached forward between the front seats to the dashboard and turned on whatever tape was in the deck. 

“Doing okay?” Nancy asked, turning the volume down just a touch. 

Jonathan thought about her question for a moment before saying, “Actually, I’m starving. Can we hit the next drive through?”

“Sure,” Steve said, glancing over his shoulder at Jonathan. “I think there’s something in another mile or two.” He seemed really hopeful, which brought a smile to Jonathan’s face. 

Nancy had to pee, so they decided to go into the restaurant to eat. It was almost nine on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so the burger place was pretty empty. Still, Jonathan sat in a booth with Nancy pressed up against his arm and Steve across from him, their ankles touching, and he felt a little like his old self. He ate his first real meal in probably a week, and when Nancy threw a fry at Steve, Jonathan laughed, and it was almost good. 

They got back to his mom’s house before midnight, and she was up, waiting for them. Jonathan let Steve take his bag, but he got himself up the stairs from the driveway to where Joyce stood in the doorway, ready to hug him. 

Jonathan let Joyce squeeze him tightly and he found himself saying, “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, sweetie,” she whispered in his ear, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t apologize. None of this is your fault.”

He wasn’t sure how much Steve had told her. He’d probably left out the things that were actually, definitely Jonathan’s fault. 

Joyce brought him inside and asked, “How are you feeling? We’ve got an appointment for you down at Scott Air Force Base in the morning. Unfortunately, it’s another two hour drive. If you’re feeling really bad, Owens said I could bring you to Springfield General for the night.”

“I’m actually feeling a lot better,” he told her as Nancy as Steve came in the door with the bags. “Maybe I was just stressed out.”

Nancy gave Jonathan a look of disbelief. 

“No, I’ll go,” he told her, shrugging out of his heavy winter coat. “But in the morning, okay? Let’s get some sleep first.”

Steve greeted Joyce with a kiss to her cheek. “Hey, Mom. We got it from here. Go to bed.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said, giving Jonathan another worried glance. She hugged Nancy hello, and then wandered down the hallway to her and Hop’s room. “Goodnight.”

Steve led the way with the bags to his and Jonathan’s room, Nancy following. Jonathan stopped in the bathroom. He noticed that there was a different brand of soap in the little dish next to the sink. It smelled weird. 

When he opened the bathroom door, El was standing there. 

“Jesus!” Jonathan cried, holding a hand to his chest like that would keep his heart from beating to wildly and escaping. “El, you scared me!”

“You’re gonna be okay,” she said, throwing her arms around Jonathan and hugging him tightly. 

“Yeah,” he told her, hugging her back. “Yeah, of course I am. You don’t need to worry.”

She nodded against his shoulder. “Okay.”

“Hey, if it isn’t the featherweight champion herself!” Steve whispered as he came back down the hallway. He hugged El and ruffled her hair, saying, “What’s up, goober?”

El smiled, pushing his hand away. “Sophomore year sucks ass.”

Jonathan couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, it kind of does.”

“We’ll catch up in the morning, huh?” Steve told El, spinning her around once before nudging her in the direction of her room. “Jonathan needs to get some sleep.”

“So do you,” she said, sticking her tongue out at Steve, but disappearing back into her room. 

Jonathan pulled Steve close, and whispered, “Your parents were idiots.”

“Um,” Steve replied, rubbing Jonathan’s back. “Duh. But why do you say that?”

“Because you were always meant to be someone’s brother.”

Steve scoffed. “You say the sweetest shit, babe.” He kissed Jonathan. “You’re really feeling better?”

“So much better,” Jonathan insisted, ending on a yawn. 

“Go to bed. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Jonathan didn’t feel like arguing, even though Steve was being a little bossy. His and Steve’s room was just the way they’d left it back in August. Most of their stuff had been moved to the apartment, but there was a bed with Jonathan’s old sheets on it, and an old nightstand, and a big dresser that had been difficult enough to move into the house. They hadn’t wanted to carry it up two flights of stairs at the apartment building, so they'd left it behind. 

Nancy was changing into pajamas, her back to the door, which Jonathan closed behind him. He asked her, “Did you pack me anything to sleep in?”

Nancy gave him a look – it felt caught between annoyed, relieved, and playful all at once. “I saw Steve pack your PJ pants and that old band T-shirt you like.”

Opening his bag, Jonathan found them right on top. “Did he pack this with the stuff I needed first deliberately on top?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said with a shrug. “It _is_ more efficient.”

Jonathan laughed. As he changed out of his sweater, he told her, “You’re such a nerd.”

She rolled her eyes at him and got into bed. 

After changing, Jonathan followed. Steve came in a minute later, stripped to his boxers and climbed in on Jonathan’s other side before turning off the bedside light. 

Jonathan took a long slow breath in before letting it out. He turned toward Nancy, pulling her close against his chest. He didn’t have to reach back for Steve, because he was already there. Jonathan drifted between the two of them.

He could tell they were still worried about him, but neither said anything. Jonathan wanted to speak up. He wanted to thank them for everything they’d done that day, and before, but he fell asleep before he got the words out.


	5. The Test

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With some help from Dr. Owens, they find out what is wrong with Jonathan.

As they had driven away from Chicago, Steve noticed the change in Jonathan. He looked like he was leaving some sort of burden behind him. He became more like his old self the closer they got to the Byers house. 

Steve wanted to feel relieved. Jonathan was feeling better! Except Steve started to get the feeling that this was somehow his fault. Jonathan was fine now that he was back home. What did that say about the life he and Jonathan had built together in Chicago? What did that say about Steve’s ability to take care of Jonathan?

He figured the first night they got back to Springfield he wouldn’t sleep very well. First nights spent anywhere had always been rough on him, even before he’d found out monsters could be real. 

Except he’d lived in this house for a whole year before going to college. He’d spent so many nights sleeping in this room. As soon as Jonathan relaxed in his arms, Steve fell asleep. 

He didn’t wake up until Joyce knocked on the door, saying, “Kids! We need to leave in about an hour.”

Putting on some clothes, Steve stumbled into the kitchen. God, he’d slept so well he almost felt drugged. Will and Hopper were both at the table, eating breakfast, so Steve poured himself some coffee and sat with them. “Hey.”

Hop grunted, still bleary-eyed, but Will got out of his seat and gave Steve a hug. “Welcome home.”

“Thanks,” Steve said, hugging Will back. Nancy and Jonathan both came into the kitchen then, Nancy wearing one of Steve’s sweatshirts over her pajamas. 

Jonathan gave his brother a hug, then sat next to Steve, leaning his head against Steve’s shoulder and closing his eyes. “I thought you slept,” Steve said to him quietly.

“I did.” Jonathan yawned. "I guess I've got some catching up to do."

After breakfast and getting dressed, Steve got Jonathan and Nancy in his car, and they waited while Joyce said goodbye to the rest of the family. When she finally got in the car, Steve asked her, “Hop has enough time to get them to school before he goes to work, right?”

“Oh, sure,” she told him. “His hours as a PI are really flexible.”

It was still weird to Steve, thinking about Hop not being the chief of police, or any kind of cop for that matter. Apparently it was difficult to use your old resume when technically you were dead and had to stay that way to avoid unraveling all the government cover ups surrounding a near-apocalypse event. Besides, as El’s dad, Hop probably didn’t need the stress of such a high profile job on top of worrying about her.

The drive to the Air Force hospital was pretty relaxed. Steve drove the first half, then Nancy took over the second. Sitting in the back seat with Joyce, Steve got asked a lot of questions about school. 

“And the education major? Are you enjoying it?”

Steve thought about this for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. I really am. The girls are all really nice.”

“The girls all want in your pants,” Jonathan said from the seat in front of Steve’s. 

“Wait, have I met any of these girls?” Nancy asked, shooting Steve a look over her shoulder. 

Steve rolled his eyes and told Joyce, “They’re just nice people.”

She made a face and nodded and he could tell she was just humoring him. 

Eventually, they got to the hospital and checked in. Steve felt extra weird around all the military people, like he couldn’t sit next to Jonathan, or even try to touch him at all. If he was going to be in the room and find out first hand what was wrong with Jonathan, Steve was going to have to be his “brother” again, wasn’t he? Gross. 

A nurse showed them all back to a private room, had Jonathan change into a hospital gown, and then there was more waiting. 

“This is stupid,” Jonathan said. “I was probably just stressed about midterms. I’m fine.”

“You are not fine,” Steve insisted, rubbing at his face. “Twenty four hours ago, I threw out your secret stash and you almost punched me. So…”

Jonathan sighed, but he nodded. He let Nancy wrap him in a hug, and Steve just had to look at them and not go to them. It sucked.

Eventually, the doctor showed up. Steve maybe kind of recognized him from after the whole Starcourt fiasco, but he didn’t want to ask anyone and turn out to be wrong. 

“How’s my favorite family doing?” he asked as he came into the room. “Jonathan. Mom. Ah, Nancy, of course. The girlfriend. And…” He turned and looked at Steve. “Hi. Dr. Sam Owens. And you are?” He offered Steve his hand to shake.

“Steve Harrington,” he said, standing up tall (taller than the doctor for sure) and shaking his hand. 

“Oh! Right, of course! From the…” Owens made a gesture that Steve didn’t understand, but thought he could probably guess from the context meant _Hawkins shit_. Either that or the was-almost-killed-by-one-of-our-rogue-secret-experiments shit. “Glad to see you looking well.”

Without waiting for a response from Steve, Owens turned to Jonathan. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I’ve been getting headaches,” Jonathan admitted, looking over to Joyce, who nodded for him to continue. “All the time. Ever since I moved to Chicago.”

“Ah! The Windy City!” Owens said with a smile. He took a light out of his pocket and shined it into Jonathan’s eyes. “So are we talking throbbing headaches, or is it a sharp sort of pain?”

“No,” Jonathan told him. “More like everything feels heavy and too loud. Like, a silent room feels too loud.”

“What about this room?”

Jonathan stopped and thought about it. “Maybe a little bit. Not as bad as in Chicago.”

“He said it got better as he drove home,” Joyce interjected. “Well, as Steve drove him home. And you haven’t been sleeping, have you?”

“Not enough,” Jonathan admitted. 

“Maybe four or five hours a night,” Steve told the doctor. Jonathan gave him a look, like he didn’t want Steve talking about stuff like that. God, then why was Steve even here? He stood up and went over to the window, still listening, but too frustrated to look at Jonathan in just that moment. 

“Where in Chicago do you live?” Owens asked, shuffling some pieces of paper. Steve stared at the cars moving around in the parking lot. 

“Kind of downtown. Close to the University of Illinois campus,” Jonathan told him. “Steve lives with me.”

Oh, now he got noticed? Could Steve speak now, too?

“Don’t,” Jonathan said, and Steve had to turn around before he figured out Jonathan was talking to him. 

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t be snotty. It’s distracting.”

Steve rolled his eyes and went back to looking out the window. Maybe while they were here, the doctors could adjust Jonathan’s attitude, too. Except Steve knew that Jonathan was in pain, and anyone could get pretty snippy while they were hurting. Steve took a deep breath and tried to remember that. 

“Hmm,” said the doctor. “Let me… I want to do a test. Real easy, okay? I’m just gonna go scrounge up the machine and I’ll be right back.”

When the doctor left, Steve went over to the bed. He put his chin on Jonathan’s shoulder and whispered, “Sorry, babe. I’m just… frustrated. Would it be better if I waited out in the hall?”

Nancy gave Steve a wide-eyed look and a subtle shake of her head. Shit, she was scared. She needed him here too. 

“On second thought, I take back the offer. I need to know what’s going on, too,” Steve said, earning a relieved smile from Nancy. 

Jonathan nudged him with his shoulder. “Hey, you’re the one who’s had to put up with me the most. You should be here. Just...be careful.”

Steve nodded. “Okay.”

Owens came back into the room, dragging a big cart with a machine on it. He waved Nancy out of where she was standing, so she came around and stood next to Steve, putting herself under Steve’s arm. 

“Alright,” said Owens. “This is pretty simple. Just a funny hat,” he held up something that looked more like one of Dustin’s “projects” than a hat. “Goes on your head, no problem. And then I’ll just take some measurements of what your brain is doing. How does that sound?”

“Okay,” Jonathan said, but he sounded kind of small and scared. Steve reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Sweetie,” Joyce said, taking Jonathan’s hand. “Will used to do these all the time. I promise, it’ll be fine.”

With that assurance, Jonathan nodded. 

Owens took a minute to get Jonathan all hooked up, and then he turned on the machine. After checking a few things, Owens said, “Okay. We’re just going to take a baseline reading here for about a minute. Just relax.”

Then the doctor took out a little notepad and started writing something. After a minute, he stopped writing and ripped the page out. “Steve, buddy. Can I get some help?”

Confused about why a doctor might need his help, Steve went over to him. Owens folded the paper in half and gave it to Steve. “I want you to go back to the window and read this to yourself, okay?”

“Sure.”

Steve took the piece of paper and did as he was asked. 

_Please think very hard about each word in the following list, only switching from one to the next as I ask you to._

  1. _A baseball_
  2. _A sock_
  3. _Tugboats_
  4. _A Dog_
  5. _Pliers_
  6. _A blue square_



Steve shrugged and waited for the doctor to give him some sort of clue as to what was going on. Then Owens pointed at Steve. 

So he thought about a baseball. He thought about this baseball over and over. 

“Jonathan?” Owens asked. “Without looking back at him, can you tell me what object Steve is thinking about right now?”

“An object?” Jonathan asked, and that’s when Steve understood. Owens was testing some sort of batshit crazy telepathy experiment. 

_Baseball. A baseball. A baseball._

Owens nodded. “Any object right now. What is he thinking about?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan said with a shrug. “His car?”

“Let’s move onto the next one.” Owens said. “A different object this time. What is it?”

_Sock. Sock. Sock. Sock._

“Jellybeans?”

Owens waved Steve off from continuing down the list. Instead, he looked at the paper tape coming out of the machine, made a few notes, then started writing on the notepad again. Tearing out that page, he folded it up and handed it to Nancy, “Um, to Steve, if you would please, my dear.”

Nancy gave Steve a look as she handed him the paper. 

_Please think about things that make you feel the following emotions_

  1. _Anger_
  2. _Happiness_
  3. _Sadness_
  4. _Boredom_
  5. _Love_



Steve raised his eyebrows at the list, but he figured if it ended up helping Jonathan, it would be worth it. 

Owens nodded, so Steve thought about the first one. What made him angry? Well, the way the creeps at the old Hawkins lab treated El made him angry. Those bastards. Experimenting on a little girl like that? Getting El’s mom pregnant while she was on all those drugs just to see if they could create someone with superpowers? And-and Steve’s dad made him angry. The bastard thought he could flit into and out of Steve’s childhood whenever he wanted, and that somehow, without ever getting to know Steve at all, he was automatically right about everything? Actually, Jonathan’s dad was a real piece of work, too. What a fucking tool!

“How is Steve feeling right now, Jonathan?”

Jonathan sighed, rubbing his nose. “I don’t know. Pissed off?”

Owens didn’t react, except to gesture for Steve to move onto the next one. 

Happiness. What made Steve happy? Well, obviously Jonathan and Nancy made him happy. Just laying in bed with them, being cozy, not having to go anywhere or be anyone other than the people they were. That was good. And coming back to the house in Springfield. That made Steve happy. He’d felt like he was part of a real family in that house, especially after El and the others had rescued Hopper. He had a mom and a dad who cared about him. A little brother and a little sister. And Jonathan. And what else? Robin made Steve happy. Talking to her on the phone about all the crazy things she was up to. Getting to catch up with her over the summer. Hopefully seeing her again over Thanksgiving. 

“How about now, Jonathan?”

Jonathan’s voice sounded soft when he said, “He’s happy about something.”

Owens waved, and Steve moved onto the next one. Sadness. The fact that Steve’s parents hadn’t tried to contact him in a year and a half. That made Steve sad. Also, having to go to Hop’s funeral and watch El and Joyce mourn him while they thought he was dead. That made Steve sad. The thought of having to say goodbye to Nancy or Jonathan at some point. 

“Cut it out,” Jonathan said. “I’m gonna fucking cry.”

“Next one,” Owens said. 

Boredom. High school. Mrs. Click’s history class. Church with his grandparents. Dinners at the country club. Having to wait in line at the DMV when he got his Illinois driver’s license and plates. Listening to Mike talk about D&D characters. 

“Jonathan?”

From where he stood behind Jonathan, Steve saw him shrug his shoulders. “I don’t know. Nothing. Blank. Bored or something.”

“Next one.”

Love. Well, that was pretty close to happy, as far as Steve was concerned. Unless it was more like the way Steve wanted to kiss Nancy for hours, or the way he wanted to rub his fingers over every inch of Jonathan’s skin. Or maybe how he felt when he was in the middle, between Jonathan and Nancy, safe and alive and so goddamn in love. Fucking Nancy while Jonathan fucked him. God, so perfect and beautiful. 

“Ah– without turning around, Jonathan,” Owens insisted. 

Jonathan cleared his throat. “I don’t want to say.”

“Come on. No judgement here. What’s Steve feeling?”

After a drawn-out sigh, Jonathan said, “He feels horny.”

“Close enough,” Owens said, looking up at Steve. 

His face feeling hot, Steve admitted, “Sorry. I kinda went on a little tangent there. Jonathan’s right.”

“Ah,” Owens said, and Steve thought the twitch at the corner of his mouth meant he was trying to be professional and not smile. 

“What does this mean?” Joyce asked, her worried face on as she went and held Jonathan’s hand. 

“It’s one data point,” Owens said. “I’d like to have a few more before I make any hypotheses. You know us scientists.”

“How long is this going to take?” Jonathan asked, laying back in the bed and reaching for Steve. Screw keeping things to themselves, Jonathan needed him. Steve put his hand in Jonathan’s. 

“Not too long, I don’t think,” Owens said, writing on his little notepad again. “Nancy, for you, please,” he said, handing it over. “Oh, and Steve? Joyce? You’ll have to step back so we can get a clear reading.”

Steve reluctantly let go of Jonathan. He watched as Jonathan read Nancy’s emotions. Then he read Joyce. Then he read an orderly standing in the next room. Then a nurse at the end of the hall.

After that one, Steve shared a look with Nancy and Joyce. “Holy shit.” His boyfriend had superpowers!

“A little bit like El,” Nancy whispered. 

“El does it all the time,” Steve realized, sitting on Jonathan’s bed while Owens went to go make some sort of phone call. “I got so used to it. I didn’t even notice you were still doing it in Chicago.”

“Will does it too,” Joyce said softly. 

“Mom,” Jonathan said, reaching for her. “I’ve seen you do it. Especially to me and Will. I thought you were just really good at reading our faces.”

“I…” Joyce went kind of pale, so Steve jumped up to steady her. He helped her over to a chair. “When your father tried to move us all to Indianapolis? I couldn’t stand it there. It was always so noisy. I thought I was just homesick. Or, or _crazy._ ”

“Jesus,” Jonathan sighed, holding onto Nancy when she got into the bed with him and hugged him. Steve decided he needed to sit with them too. “Is it something to do with the city?”

“The people are packed a lot closer together in Chicago,” Nancy pointed out. “All that emotional input, on top of stressing about school and everything? It’s enough to make anyone get overwhelmed.”

“But it has to be stronger now,” Jonathan insisted. “Or easier to access or something. I know I couldn’t do this a couple years ago.”

“My episodes got worse in my early twenties,” Joyce said. She looked down at her hands. “I also got better at hiding them.”

“But can you do that?” Jonathan asked, pointing toward the door. “Can you tell what a stranger is feeling from fifty yards away?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know this was something that could be controlled.”

“Maybe it’s a combination of things,” Nancy suggested. “Getting a little older, being in the city. Maybe … that thing you did with El last year?”

“Or just being around El in the first place,” Steve suggested.

“So, it’s…” Jonathan asked, his voice so soft it broke Steve’s heart. “It’s not my fault?”

“It’s not your fault,” Nancy assured him, kissing Jonathan’s cheek. Steve ran his hand up and down over Jonathan’s blanket-covered leg. 

“Jesus, can you imagine what would have happened if I’d gone to New York for school?” Jonathan asked. 

Steve had been to New York before. His parents had taken him once. There were a _lot_ of people there. Even more than in Chicago. How quickly would Jonathan have been overwhelmed there?

Steve didn’t like thinking about it. 

~*~

Nancy took a turn driving back to the house. Owens had more promises of tests over the long winter break, but for today, it was time to go home. Jonathan and Joyce both fell asleep in the back seat, while Steve sat next to Nancy up front. 

After a while of driving in silence, Nancy looked over at Steve and asked him, “What are you thinking?”

“Our boyfriend is an _empath_ ,” Steve said, like he was testing out how to say the word. “Hell, the whole family is empaths. Except you, me, and Hop. Like, what the fuck?”

With a little snort, Nancy nodded. She looked back at Jonathan in the mirror. “You know, when we were first getting to know each other, Jonathan told me that he likes taking pictures of people instead of talking to them, because pictures didn’t lie. People do. At first I thought these headaches were something about the Upside Down, or about El taking him on that trip into your mind–“

“Yeah, that still freaks me out,” Steve admitted. 

“But I think maybe he’s always been this way. He’s always been able to feel what other people are feeling. Even if it was a subconscious sort of thing.” Nancy sighed. “Now we have to figure out how to help him.”

“What if he can’t come back to Chicago with us?” Steve asked in a quiet voice.

Looking back in the mirror again, just in case, Nancy admitted, “I don’t know.”

“Well, maybe we just leave the superhero shit to the superheroes,” Steve said, “and we focus on making the food for tomorrow. I’m about 20 pounds light on gaining the freshman fifteen, and I could really go for like a boat of mashed potatoes right now.”

Nancy laughed. She reached over and put her hand on Steve’s wrist. “You always know how to cheer me up.”

“That’s my job,” he insisted, patting the back of her hand with his other hand.

Nancy thought about that. If Steve’s job was cheering people up, what was her job? She didn’t know. 

Part of her had been weirded out when Jonathan could tell what she was feeling from across the room without even looking at her. But after watching Jonathan guess all of Steve’s emotions, part of her felt glad that it wasn’t just a thing between the two of them. The two of them were just _so close_ , that even after living in the same city again, Nancy sometimes felt like an outsider. 

The problem was that she didn’t know how to fix that feeling. The only thing she could think of was to spend more time with both of them than they spent with each other. How was she supposed to do that when her newspaper work kept her on campus all the time? Their apartment was just so far from campus. It made sense to stay in her dorm more often than the apartment. 

She hated it at the dorm. It was somehow too cold and too warm at the same time. During senior year of high school, she'd gotten used to sleeping by herself again. One would think this would make it easier for her to sleep by herself in her dorm bed. The problem was that her roommate, Beth, made a lot of noise in her sleep.

"Maybe we should find you guys a different apartment," Nancy suggested, looking over at Steve. "I know the one you have is right by school and work, but maybe Jonathan needs to live in a less… I don't know, _dense_ area of the city."

Steve shrugged. "Yeah, I mean. If that's what we gotta do. You got any part of town in mind?"

"Further north?" Nancy suggested. "Maybe closer to Evanston?"

"Oh, yeah?" he asked with a laugh. "And just who would that be more convenient for? Jonathan, or you?"

"For all of us," she insisted. 

Steve laughed again and shook his head. "Unless you can help us pay rent, we can't afford anything further north."

"Yeah," she replied with a sigh. "Yeah, I knew that."

"Hey," he put his hand behind Nancy's neck, just sort of holding her while she drove. "Maybe next year, huh?"

Nancy nodded, wiping at her nose so she wouldn't have to sniffle. "Yeah. Next year. Sounds great."


	6. Burial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eleven teaches Jonathan some healthier methods for coping.

Jonathan followed El down the stairs into the previously-unfinished basement, still a little shaken by what Dr. Owens had discovered about him that morning. Jonathan always knew he was different from other people. He just never realized  _ how  _ different. He felt a little stupid for not figuring it out before. Jonathan had known for almost a year that he, Will, and their mom were more like El than everyone else. He should have realized it didn't just stop at being able to help her when she needed it. It didn't just stop at being immune to whatever Nine had tried to do to him. 

It kept going.

Jonathan had always figured he was just better at reading people's faces and their body language because he spent so much time observing them. Watching. Not needing to talk to people to figure out what they were feeling, and whether or not they meant him harm. Lonnie had been Jonathan's first subject. If Jonathan wasn't careful enough, if he didn't pay close enough attention, he didn't get out of the way in time. He didn't get Will out of the way in time.

Jonathan had only made that mistake once.

He told El as they neared the bottom of the stairs, "Mom says over the last two months you guys have put a lot of work into fixing things up down here."

"Dad did most of it," she said, flipping on the lightswitch at the bottom of the stairs. About half the basement was still unfinished, full of shelves and boxes. The other half of the basement was walled off, the drywall textured and painted a clean white color. A nice, light brown door sat in the middle of the wall. "His PI business is still new, so he needed something to occupy his time while we were at school."

He laughed. Yeah, Hopper was the kind of guy who needed some sort of project to do, especially when he wasn't working. The first few months after his rescue, he'd redone the master bathroom (forcing all six of them to share the tiny bathroom that was still working). Over the summer he and Steve redid the roof. This must have been the fall project.

El went to the door and opened it, reaching in and turning on the light. "Watch your step," she said, stepping up at least six inches as she entered the room. 

Jonathan followed her, and what he found was something that looked sort of like a bathroom. The floor was a clean, white tile with a drain in the middle. There was a shower in one corner, and a sink next to another door, which confused Jonathan, until he opened it and found a little room just big enough for a toilet. The main differences were the walls and ceiling – which were covered with thick padding – and the deep tub, which was covered with plastic and surrounded with some sort of equipment. There was a stereo on the opposite wall, elevated about two feet off the floor on a mounted shelf. 

"What is this?" Jonathan asked her, watching as El went over to the tub and flipped a switch. The water started gurgling.

"It takes a little while to warm up," she told him with a smile. Presenting the tub with an excited flourish, she said, "It's a sensory deprivation tub!"

Frowning, Jonathan got a little closer. "Like the one we built so you could find Will?"

El nodded. "I've been practicing. Will's been helping me."

"You guys haven't been going to the Upside Down again, have you?"

El shook her head so quickly, Jonathan wasn't sure whether she  _ had  _ been visiting the Upside Down, or the idea of going there again frightened her so badly, she'd never try it. "Mostly we've been visiting Hawkins."

"Oh." Jonathan supposed he understood that. They missed their friends.

"Sometimes…" El hugged herself. "Sometimes Owens sends me a picture."

Jonathan’s stomach dropped. “He’s got you spying for them?”

“We made a deal,” El insisted. “He tells me what I want to know, I tell him what he wants to know.”

“And Hop’s onboard with this?”

El nodded. “We’ve found a couple more Red Dawn bases, and now…” She lowered her voice. “I know how many numbers there are.” She held up her tattooed wrist.

Breathless, Jonathan asked, “How many?”

“There were fifteen of us,” El told him, sitting down on the edge of the tub. “The first four all died really young. As babies.” She shook her head. “Seven and Thirteen don’t have any powers. Five is…” She shook her head. “I’m not supposed to look for Five.”

“We know about Eight,” Jonathan said, more to change the subject away from a topic El clearly didn’t enjoy thinking about. “Have you visited her?”

El nodded. “I did a couple of months ago. She was okay.” With a sigh, El pulled the plastic back from the tub and stuck her hand in the water. “Ten and Fifteen both had brain aneurysms. They died.”

“Nine died,” Jonathan whispered. He could still remember how much his arms ached for days afterward. “Who does that leave?”

“Six, Twelve, and Fourteen,” she said with a nod. “Two sisters and a brother.”

“Brenner?” Jonathan asked, thinking about what they had learned from Nine last year.

El nodded.

Jonathan shook his head. And he thought  _ his _ dad was an asshole. “Do you want to find them?”

“I don’t know,” El told him. “I found Seven. She teaches Kindergarten. I didn’t want to…” she gestured at the bath. “She gets to be normal.”

“I hear being normal is overrated,” Jonathan told her, glad when she smiled. “Not that I would know. Apparently, I’m even less normal than I thought.”

Having that realization, Jonathan tried to read El’s emotions. He tried, but she was blank. Nothing. “Wait, how are you doing that?” he asked. 

“Doing what?”

Well, now Jonathan felt dumb. He didn’t want to explain, but El was looking at him with such expectation, he didn’t want to brush her off. “I can’t read you. Like, your emotions, or whatever.”

El’s eyebrows went up and she said, “Ah. Yeah, I, um, figured out how to block out everyone. So I don’t have another… Nine situation.” She shook her head, and Jonathan could see the unease on her face, but he couldn’t feel it. 

Thinking about Nine made Jonathan uneasy as well. Jonathan had killed him. Twice. Well, the second time he’d helped El kill him, but it still counted. “How did you figure it out?”

“It was actually…” El gestured above them, to the main floor of the house. “I got the idea from how Steve kept Nine out long enough for us to find him. There’s this…” She waved her hands around. “Upside Down  _ stuff _ . If you’ve been there it kind of…” 

El sighed, but Jonathan was used to this. She sometimes had problems finding the right word. Usually he just had to wait it out. Either she’d think of the word she wanted, or she would describe it and ask him for the word. 

“It sticks. In your body. In your mind. You can use it to make a…” She put her hands over her head. “A shelter for your brain. Keep everything else out.”

“Wow.” Jonathan couldn’t help but be a little weirded out by that description. “Is that the only way to do it? Using Upside Down stuff? What about people who haven’t been there?”

“Maybe,” El said, with a nod.

Jonathan looked around. “So, now what?”

“I was thinking,” she stood up and patted the tub, “that we could use this and I could teach you how to make the shelter, too!”

“Would it help with all the … noise?” Jonathan asked, rubbing his temple. 

El nodded. “It’s helped me a lot with school. It’s not so overwhelming now.”

Just the thought of being able to go back to school without pain made Jonathan want to cry with relief. He stood up and pulled El into a hug. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” El told him, hugging back. “The tub probably won’t be ready for a couple hours.”

While they were waiting, Jonathan decided to go catch up with his brother. He went in and collapsed on Will’s bed next to him, taking the book out of his hand. “What’cha reading?”

“Hey!” Will said, but he laughed as he tried to get the book back. 

Holding it out where Will couldn’t reach, Jonathan looked at the front cover. “Star Wars? Really?”

“It’s good!” Will insisted, taking the book when Jonathan gave it back, and setting it aside with his page marked. “So, you saw Owens today, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jonathan replied, looking up at Will’s ceiling and realizing that sometime in the last few months, he’d put glow-in-the-dark stars up there. “He says I’m an empath. Like my brother.”

“That one’s subtle for me,” Will told him. “It feels more like I’m guessing than with the other stuff.”

“Other stuff?” Jonathan asked, not quite sure what Will was talking about. “You mean being a gate?”

“Unh-uh.” Will shook his head. “Well, I mean I can still see into the Upside Down if I try hard enough. But El’s been taking me to the Inbetween. I’m starting to be able to do it on my own.”

“No shit?” Jonathan asked, surprised to hear this. “Do you visit people like she can?”

“I can’t go very far yet,” Will insisted. Then he grinned. “Don’t tell Mom, but I’ve been using it to mess with some of the kids who make fun of El.”

Jonathan’s heart broke. “Kids make fun of her?”

“Remember how she had to get that tutor last year?” Will asked, grabbing a putty eraser from his nightstand and throwing it up before catching it again.

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “People are being assholes about that?”

“Yeah. A couple of guys wrote on her locker twice last year.” Will sighed.

Curious, Jonathan asked, “How did you mess with them?”

Looking over, Will grinned. “I followed one of them long enough to get his locker combination. Then the day before we had a long weekend, I opened a can of tuna and left it in his locker.”

Jonathan laughed. “Oh, shit. That must have smelled horrible!”

“It smelled even worse after he puked on his girlfriend,” Will added with a laugh. “Everyone was talking about it for days afterward.”

Nudging Will with his shoulder, Jonathan asked, “Still got a few art club friends?”

Nodding, Will said, “Amber and Jenny. They’re friends with El, too. They’re nice, but sometimes they ditch me to talk about ‘girl stuff.’” He rolled his eyes. Then he nudged Jonathan back. “You make any college friends yet?”

“Not really,” Jonathan admitted. “There’s this one guy in my art history class that I talk to sometimes. Dale. He’s alright.” Snorting a little, Jonathan told Will, “I think our neighbor from across the hall is trying to get me to ask her out.”

Will laughed. “Can’t she tell what a freak you are?”

“Guess not,” Jonathan replied.

The putty ball fell to the ground, but Will didn’t go after it. “I bet Steve has a million friends already.”

“It’s so annoying,” Jonathan admitted. “They’re  _ all  _ girls. And I’m pretty sure they’re all waiting for Steve and Nancy to break up so they can swoop in. It’s awful.”

Will hummed. “For a while, I think Amber and Jenny were hoping I was going to ask one of them out.”

“Not interested?”

Shaking his head, Will said, “No. Not yet, anyway. Not anyone.” He frowned. “Sometimes it seems like all people are ever doing is holding hands and kissing in the hallways. I’m just standing there wondering why.”

Jonathan snorted a little laugh. 

“What?” Will asked him. 

“Nothing,” Jonathan insisted. “I just think it’s funny, how I like both girls and guys and you like neither. Mom got really lucky with us.”

Will laughed a little too. “Really lucky. Sure.”

~*~

“Hey, you made it!” Steve cried as he met Robin at the front door, pulling her into a tight hug. “How was the drive?”

“Fine,” she said, looking over at Mike, who stood on the step below hers, and was still taller than her. “We ended up talking movies the whole time.”

Steve grabbed Mike for a hug too. “You grew, Wheeler,” he said. “Are you taller than me, now?”

“Probably,” Mike said with a laugh. Then he added. “Please, please talk to Robin about  _ Wrath of Khan _ . She won’t admit it’s a classic!”

“Hey, I know better than to disagree with Robin about this sort of shit.” He gave Robin a high five. “But c’mon in, guys. It’s getting late.”

Mike didn’t have to be told twice. His giant legs rocketed him into the house ahead of them, and El’s excited squeal followed shortly after. 

As Robin walked into the house, she asked, “So, how’s Jonathan doing?”

“Better, now that we’re here,” Steve assured her, bringing her back toward the bedrooms. “You can keep your shit in my room. Still okay to sleep on the couch?”

“Yeah, no worries,” Robin said, tossing her bag through Steve’s bedroom door. “I’m glad he’s feeling better. I know he means a lot to you.”

Steve nodded, looking down at his hands. 

“What?” Robin asked, putting her hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

He shrugged. “I was just … really scared, you know? I thought he was dying.”

Robin threw her arms around Steve and hugged him. “He’s not, right?”

“No,” Steve sighed, leaning his head against Robin’s. “Now that they know what it is, El’s going to help him. Give him a few lessons, or something.”

Robin hummed and hugged Steve harder for a second before letting go. 

“Hey, so tell me all about your secret agent training,” Steve said, leading Robin to the kitchen and getting her a glass of water. 

“I can’t say much, obviously,” Robin said, “but it’s been so far, so good when it comes to Hawkins monster shit this year.”

Giving an over dramatic gasp, Steve pointed at her and said, “Knock on wood, right now, young lady!”

Robin laughed and knocked on the cabinet door beside her. 

Nancy came into the kitchen then, saying, “Hey, Robin! I’m glad you made it!”

“Well, last year was so bangin’,” Robin told her, giving Nancy a hug, “I wouldn’t miss it this year.”

Nancy laughed, but Steve didn’t really like the reminder. This time last year, he’d almost died. He came home Thanksgiving morning after two nights in the hospital.

“So far,” said Nancy, putting herself under Steve’s arm, “we’re hoping this year’s a lot less exciting.”

“Amen,” Steve said, hugging Nancy close.

~*~

“Are you sure we should be starting this late?” Jonathan asked, wearing his old swim trunks and a sweatshirt, standing next to the basement tub. The room was insulated and warmer than the rest of the basement, but Jonathan shivered anyway. It didn’t help that his hair was still wet from the shower El had insisted he take before getting into her tub. “It’s almost midnight.”

“We won’t try for very long,” El assured him, pulling a chair into the room and setting it next to the tub. Will was already sitting on another chair in the corner.

“Yeah, it’s better to work your way up,” Will said, pulling his heels up onto the chair and hugging his knees. 

Looking at the tub, Jonathan asked, “So, I just get in?”

“Yeah,” El told him, taking the plastic cover off the tub and swirling her hand through the water. “When we get rid of your other senses, it’s easier to focus on the one that’s giving you trouble.”

“This is so goddamn weird,” Jonathan said, but then he shrugged and took off his sweatshirt. He got into the tub, which was perfectly warm, and asked El, “Now what?”

“Float on your back,” she told him. “There’s a lot of salt in there, so it should be really easy.”

Jonathan laid back, putting his legs out in front of him. He did float, bobbing a little up and down in the water as he breathed. “Okay?”

“Will is going to turn on the static, and then turn off the lights. We’ll both be right here, and we can turn the lights back on whenever you want, okay?”

“Sure,” Jonathan said with a sigh, wondering if it was that obvious he was still afraid of being alone in the dark.

The stereo switched on, playing nothing but static at a volume moderate enough that Jonathan would still be able to hear El’s voice, and be heard in turn. Then the lights went out.

“Deep breaths,” El told him, after which he realized he was breathing too fast, starting to panic. 

Jonathan took a nice deep breath in, before letting it back out again slowly. After a minute or two of this, everything started falling away. He was alone with the beating sound of his heart.

“Good,” El said, her voice sounding farther away. “Now try to read Will.”

Jonathan did as she asked, thinking about Will and just trying to feel anything coming from his brother. “He’s sleepy.”

El chuckled a little. “Yeah. Now try to remember how it smelled in the Upside Down.”

“Bad,” Jonathan remembered. 

“Yeah. Can you put that memory between you and Will?”

Jonathan wasn’t sure about that. “How do I move a memory?”

“You think it until it happens,” El told him. “It’s okay if it takes a while. We’re building up to this over time.”

Figuring he had nothing to lose, Jonathan thought about the Upside Down and he thought about putting it between him and Will.

“It’s working,” Will told him. “Good job!”

“Thanks,” Jonathan said, even though he had no clue what he was doing. “Now what?”

“Pile up a bunch of good, happy memories behind it,” El told him. “Memories about anything you want.”

Jonathan thought about listening to music with Will, and he thought about Nancy smiling at him, and about Steve holding him close. He thought about Christmas last year, when Hopper was back and El and his mom were so happy and the tree looked so beautiful he and Steve just sat next to it for hours, holding each other and staring at it. He stacked these up between the bad memory of the Upside Down and himself. 

“Now I want you to focus on how this feels,” El told him. “Focus on the feeling and take some nice, deep breaths.”

Jonathan did as she asked. 

“What’s a word that comes to mind when you think about how this feels?” She asked him, and she felt so far away.

“Buried,” he said, the first word that came to the tip of his tongue. 

“Okay, think the word buried. I’m going to touch your shoulders, okay? I’m just going to squeeze one, and then the other. Back and forth. Just for a minute. While I do that, I want you to think about that feeling and about the word buried. Okay?”

Jonathan felt El’s hands slip into the water near his head, her palms under his shoulders and her thumbs on top. “Okay.”

“Here we go.”

Jonathan did as she asked. He thought about how it felt to be behind this barrier. He thought about the word. He floated, thinking these things, while El gently squeezed his shoulders, one then the other. Back and forth, back and forth. Jonathan felt almost like he was swinging, or rocking in a boat, swaying.

After a while, El withdrew her hands and said, “Okay, now take a few more deep breaths. Relax.”

Jonathan relaxed. He relaxed so much he felt like he was going to fall asleep. 

When El spoke again, her voice was soft and careful. “When you need to reinforce the block, you can just think your word, okay?”

It sounded weird, but Jonathan thought,  _ buried _ , and the noise in his head got even quieter. “I think it’s working.”

“Alright. Keep your eyes closed,” El told him. “Will’s going to turn on the light. It can be a little bright at first.”

“Okay.”

Jonathan saw the light come on through his eyelids, and slowly he let his eyes get used to the light and blink open. Holding onto the edge of the tub, he sat up.

"How do you feel?" Will asked him.

"Better," Jonathan replied, listening for the static that had been driving him crazy in Chicago. Obviously, it was better here, where he was around just a few people he trusted, but it felt like the background white humming noise had faded a bit. "Am I cut off from you guys now? Is it working?"

"Not all the way," El told him. "But it's a good start."

"What if…" Jonathan put his chin on the edge of the tub. "What if I'm… I don't know. What if I need to use it? This ability, I mean."

"The block fades over time," El assured him. "And tomorrow we can work on how to get around it. Bring just the people you want inside it. Keep everyone else out."

Will stood up and offered Jonathan his hand, and Jonathan took it. As he got out of the tub, he was surprised by how strong Will had become. He wasn't twelve anymore. He was fifteen now, almost sixteen. He was almost as old as Jonathan had been when El first came into their lives.

Jonathan took the towel El handed him, drying off and wrapping it around his waist before putting his sweatshirt back on. "Thanks," he said to his siblings. "I really appreciate this."

"It's what family does," El insisted, taking Jonathan's hand and squeezing it.

He trudged upstairs and went into his room. Steve was asleep, but the light was still on and Nancy was working on school work or something. "Hey," she said when she saw him. "How did it go?"

"Good," he replied, picking up the pajamas Steve had packed for him and a clean pair of underwear. "I'm gonna shower off the salt. Back in a minute."

Except Nancy caught up to him as he got to the bathroom door. "Can I sit with you?" she asked, wrapping her hand around his wrist. "Or do you want to be alone?"

Jonathan found himself trying to read Nancy like he would have before, but he couldn't. She was muted to him and as much as he wanted not to be in pain anymore, he hated how it made her feel so far away. He was half tempted to tell her he wanted to be alone, so he wouldn't have to deal with the disconnect. But not letting her sit with him now would just push her further away, wouldn't it?

He turned her palm over, stroking the scar there and trying to remember how to reach her. And then there she was. He found her, past the blockage or shield or whatever it was. She was worried about him, and sad, but also loving. Smiling at her, Jonathan kissed her palm and said, "Come sit with me?"

Nancy nodded.

They slipped into the bathroom together, Nancy closing the door behind them. Jonathan got the water going and grabbed a fresh towel from the cabinet under the sink. Nancy jumped up onto the counter and he could feel how much she loved him. Jonathan put his hands on either side of Nancy's face and kissed her. "I love you too," he said, with a smile.

She gave a tiny laugh. "Reading my emotions, are we?" 

"I'll stop if you want me to," he assured her. 

"No," Nancy replied, taking Jonathan's scarred hand and kissing it. "I don't want you to stop. Not unless it's hurting you to keep going."

"It doesn't."

"Good." Nancy leaned forward and gave Jonathan another kiss. "Go rinse off. We should try to get some sleep."

Nodding, Jonathan stepped back. He watched her as he dropped his swim trunks, smiling when he caught the little flare of desire that went through her. "You sure it's sleep you're after?"

"Shut up," she said with a laugh, her cheeks going rosy. 

Jonathan stepped into the shower, rinsed off all the salt and chlorine from the tub, and then turned off the water. He dried off and stepped out of the shower with his towel wrapped around his waist. Nancy was gone. And so were his clothes.

Rolling his eyes, Jonathan made sure the towel was secure before darting across the hall to his room. He closed and locked the door before turning around. Nancy was in the bed, in the process of taking Steve's shirt off him. 

Jonathan took the towel from around his waist and made sure his hair was as dry as he could get it before joining them in bed. He kissed Nancy's shoulder and said, "I thought you were going to sit with me."

"You gave me a better idea," she said, giving Steve a kiss before scooting away from him. To Jonathan she said, "Here. You're in the middle tonight."

"Yeah?" Jonathan asked, but he climbed between the two of them, slipping under the covers. 

Steve still seemed half asleep, but he wrapped his arm around Jonathan and kissed the back of his neck. Nancy pressed against Jonathan’s chest, kissing him. He pulled her close, feeling the love rolling off her as he kissed her back. 

Steve was silent to him until Jonathan thought about pulling him closer instead of shutting him out. There he was. Sleepy and loving and protective. Jonathan thought now that the rest of the voices in his head were muffled, he was able to hear Nancy and Steve even better than before. It was almost overwhelming, and Jonathan thought about saying his word and burying their voices again.

He thought about it, but ultimately he didn’t do it. He’d spent so much of the past couple months unable to really connect with them the way he used to. Here and now he could get it back. 

Jonathan pressed back against Steve, tilting his hips to rub against Steve’s cock. The flare of arousal Steve felt made them both gasp. 

His voice a low murmur, Steve asked, “Nance? Did we remember to pack the lube?”

Pulling away from kissing Jonathan, Nancy replied, “Yeah.”

Jonathan felt Steve’s relief as Nancy left the bed and came back a few seconds later. Nancy handed off the tube to Steve before taking Jonathan’s face in her hands and kissing him again. 

Nancy was starting to feel desperate, so Jonathan trailed one of his hands down her chest and belly before rubbing lightly between her legs. She groaned lightly, her desire ramping up as he touched her. 

He’d been expecting to feel Steve’s cock any second, but instead Steve’s wet hand found Jonathan’s cock and stroked. Jonathan had to bite his lips and then press them to Nancy’s to keep from crying out. 

And then there was Steve’s cock, and Steve behind it, so careful and loving and wanting. Jonathan relaxed and let him slip inside, a bit of a burn to the stretch, but feeling the echo of Steve’s pleasure made it amazing. Jonathan knew he wouldn’t last long. 

He urged Nancy to turn around and put her back against his chest. Holding her close with one hand, he used the other to guide his cock into her. She was wet and tight, and the echo of her pleasure was almost overwhelming as his own.

Somewhere along the past three years, they’d learned the rhythm for this particular dance, and Jonathan lost himself to it. He rocked back and forth between Nancy and Steve, his hand on Nancy’s clit and his lips on her neck. She moved with him, tilting her hips back to meet him and make the slide of his cock bump sharply against the spot that made her want to cry out. Behind Jonathan, Steve moved in counterpoint. He let Jonathan set the pace, but held onto his hip and thrust into Jonathan sharply when Jonathan’s hips were tilted all the way back. 

Feeling both of them like this, with his body and with his emotions, was more than overwhelming. It felt sharp and it hurt, but it was good too and Jonathan didn’t want it to stop. He could feel himself, edging closer, almost getting there, holding back just from willpower and the need to help his partners join him. 

He felt Nancy start to come, and she muttered, “Shit, shit, shit,” before pulling one of the pillows to her face to muffle her cries. Jonathan moved his hand from her clit to her hip, holding her steady as he worked with Steve to get the two of them off, too. 

Steve fell first, his mouth sucking on Jonathan’s neck, his breath fast and heavy through his nose. Then Jonathan let go, he let himself feel everything they were feeling, he let his body do what it needed to do, and he came, shuddering between them. His cock pumped into Nancy and his ass clenched around Steve’s cock, pressing it tight against Jonathan’s prostate. It felt like he kept coming for hours. 

When he was done, Jonathan felt wrung out and exhausted, but in a pleasant way. He closed his eyes and floated, feeling loved. He was still connected to Steve and Nancy, body and soul, when he fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter El helps Jonathan using a form of bilateral stimulation therapy, which was just being discovered in 1987. My headcanon is that she stumbled upon it by instinct while growing up in the lab as a way of coping with the abuse she suffered.


	7. The Missing Student

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan, Nancy, and Steve return to Chicago, getting back into the swing of classes and work. Nancy receives an assignment for the paper that piques her interest.

Nancy and Steve drove Jonathan back to Chicago on the Sunday afternoon after Thanksgiving. Jonathan seemed to be doing a lot better, but Nancy was still worried about him. What if Chicago was more than he could handle? What if he lost whatever trick El had taught him and the headaches came back? Nancy would have liked to believe that Jonathan would tell her, or at least tell Steve. But she knew she didn't quite believe it. Jonathan liked taking care of others, but he hated being taken care of. 

Would Nancy know if his headaches came back? Would she know if he started doing something stupid, like drinking again? Or worse?

When they got close to the city, Steve asked Nancy, "Do you want me to drop you off at school?"

She shook her head. "No. I mean, you probably should, but I–" She looked over at him and then at Jonathan in the back seat. "I'll go back in the morning."

Jonathan smiled at her, saying, "I'm okay, Nancy. You don't have to treat me like I'm fragile or something."

"I know you're not," she told him, reaching back and putting her hand on his knee. He covered her hand with his. "I'm just not ready to go back yet. I want one more night sleeping in the same bed."

A soft smile spread across Jonathan's face and he nodded. "Yeah. That does sound nice."

The way they moved back into the apartment was so much slower and more solumn than the way they'd left it earlier in the week. Nancy could tell they were all waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for Jonathan's headache to come back.

They shared a pizza Steve picked up from down the street and watched TV and went to bed early. Steve curled himself around Jonathan's back, and Nancy held Jonathan's hand, pressing her forehead against his, breathing the same air as him. After Steve fell asleep, Nancy whispered to Jonathan, "How are you feeling? Is it getting bad?"

His eyes still closed, Jonathan whispered back, "No. I can feel it, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s a lot quieter than it used to be.”

“Good,” she said, reaching forward and kissing him. “Get some sleep.”

“You too.”

In the morning, Steve gave Nancy a ride back to school. As she looked out at her dorm, she said, “I don’t care if my dad has a fit, I'm living with you guys next year."

"Hey," Steve replied softly, tucking Nancy's hair behind her ear. "I would love that. But I don't want you to jeopardize your spot here, Nancy. Northwestern is a big deal. And even if I dropped out and worked full time, I don't think…" He sighed. "I can't pay your tuition like your dad can."

"No one asked you to," Nancy insisted, putting her hand over his on the side of her face. "You can't drop out, Steve. Please. Not for me."

Steve rolled his eyes, but he smiled too. "I'm not gonna drop out. Don't worry about it. I was just… Nevermind." He tapped on the dashboard clock. "I should get back so I can make it to class on time."

"Okay." Nancy leaned closer and gave Steve a kiss. "If I don't come over tonight, I'll call."

"Can't wait."

Nancy took a deep breath and let it out before she could summon the energy to get out of the car. Nancy's roommate, Beth, wasn't in the room when she got there, which Nancy was grateful for. 

She'd never really clicked with Beth, or Beth had never really clicked with her, or something. At one point, Nancy wondered why it was so hard for her to even _think_ about making a new friend. She had class friends, for sure. People she chatted with around the dorm. Maybe a friend or two at the newspaper, but no close friends.

Part of Nancy wondered if she was doing it to protect Steve and Jonathan. After all, a lot of her life revolved around them, and she didn't want to slip up and tell the wrong person about their relationship. Her silence around others could also have been because the defining parts of her young life were largely because of a secret government experiment gone wrong in her hometown. So she ended up not talking about Steve or Jonathan or her past at all. Except Nancy knew that she was a lot more than just Steve and Jonathan's girlfriend. She could talk about the books and movies she liked, or the kinds of newspaper articles she wanted to write, or the places she wanted to travel.

Nancy could have done all that, but she didn't.

Because what if she did? What if she let someone else close and they got hurt because of her? Again?

Taking some deep breaths, Nancy did her makeup and put on some fresh clothes and packed her backpack for the day. She had two classes and then the weekly check-in meeting at the newspaper.

The classes were fine. Nancy forced herself to focus on them, and she only got a little distracted thinking about Jonathan and how he was doing. The newspaper meeting was fine, too. She got an assignment to cover an upcoming protest at the medical school, which was better than she expected after how she'd dropped everything for Jonathan's sake last week.

After the meeting, Brian pulled Nancy aside and asked her, "So, how did the family emergency work out? Is everything okay?"

Honestly, she was impressed that he remembered, and impressed that he took a moment to ask her about it.

"Yeah," she replied with a sincere nod. "Everything's okay."

"What happened?"

God, what could she say? What would be convincing enough without being too far out there? After a moment, she said, "My…" Wait, _boyfriend_ was too informal for the type of emergency they'd been through. She decided to go with "... _fiance_ had to go to the hospital."

"Oh my god," Brian whispered. "Is he okay?"

Nancy nodded, and found herself wiping a tear out of her eye. "Yeah. Luckily it was something they could treat. He's home now. Resting."

"Good." Brian pointed to Nancy's notebook. "You're sure you're okay taking this assignment? I can give you something else instead. I think one of the sororities is going to have a bake sale."

Nancy made a face of disgust. "No, I think covering the protest will be fine," she insisted. "I could use the distraction."

Brian nodded and Nancy left to go to her last lecture of the day. Thinking about the upcoming protest, Nancy realized that some pictures of the protesters and their signs might actually make the front page if Nancy played her cards right. She should request a photographer from the paper.

Or, she could ask Jonathan if he wanted to come be her photographer for the day. It would give them more time together, and maybe get him out of his head a little bit. Yeah, Nancy liked that idea. 

~*~

It was a bit of a walk between the neighborhood where Steve could park his car, and the building where most of his classes were held. It was freezing out, but he needed the time alone to decompress after the past week. 

Steve had never been a fan of those moments where he’d almost lost either Jonathan or Nancy. They’d always been the moments that came back to him in his nightmares. The ones where his own life had been in danger barely phased him, but Jonathan almost getting eaten? Nancy leading the charge toward the monsters, instead of away from them? 

Yeah, he hated that shit. 

This thing with Jonathan was somehow worse. Like, yeah maybe being exposed to the Upside Down, or helping El fight off a psychic parasite had made Jonathan worse, but none of his problems were directly linked to any of the Hawkins shit. He’d always been _sensitive_ , he’d always had a dad who was a drunk, he’d always been reluctant to burden anyone else with his problems. This problem was just _Jonathan_. It might always be with him.

And that scared the shit out of Steve.

It made Steve wonder if he was going to end up taking after his dad, too. A serial philanderer. A cheater. Someone always looking for the next bed to land in. So far, Steve hadn’t been that way. He’d spent three years committed to Nancy and Jonathan. He hadn’t felt the need to look anywhere else. 

But then again, it had only been three years. With the rest of their lives ahead of them, was Steve sure he wouldn’t go looking? He felt sure now. He felt really sure. 

What if that changed?

Or, what if he ended up taking after his _mother_ , instead? Always chasing after that one person who wouldn’t stay. Always waiting for things to change? Doing his best to take care of everyone, and still somehow doing a shit job of it?

Honestly, Steve could have seen this becoming him and Nancy, if it wasn’t for Jonathan. Maybe it would become him and Jonathan always chasing after Nancy? Always trying to stay relevant in her life, even as she was leaving them behind?

Yeah, Steve decided. Despite the way he acted in early high school, Steve totally took after his mother, not his father. He must have subconsciously known this, and had been compensating for it by being such a douchebag. He must have known he wasn’t the tough guy his dad wanted him to be. He’d always been a little too kind, a little too soft. A little too prone to staring at boys like Jonathan Byers and wondering why his stomach hurt. 

He wondered if that was the reason his parents hadn't bothered to contact him. Not that they could now. They didn't know where he was. 

Steve made it to class, and while he was there, he decided, _Fuck it_. He was going to reach out to his parents first. He wasn’t going to chase after them forever if they didn’t want anything to do with him, but at least he could reach out once or twice. At least he could say he tried. 

_Mom and Dad_

This first line didn’t seem right. When he thought Mom and Dad, he kind of had images of Joyce and Hopper in his head. And why not? They’d been there for him when his other parents weren’t.

He scratched the line out and started again on a new piece of paper. 

_Fred and Harriet,_

_I thought you might want to know. I’m going to college in Chicago. I started back in September. I know there’s things about me that you probably will never approve of, but whatever. This is me, reaching out. If you don’t reach back, at least I’ll know your reputations mean more to you than I ever did._

_Your ex-son,_

_Steve_

“What is that?” Stef whispered, leaning close and looking at his letter. 

“Nothing,” Steve told her, flipping back to the page where he’d been writing notes. 

She dropped it, at least until after class, when she pulled Steve aside in the hallway and asked him, “Hey, are you okay? You weren’t in class on Wednesday.”

Steve looked away from her and sighed. “I just had a really stressful weekend. I’ll be fine.” Her face fell, and Steve knew he was being kind of a dick. Stef didn’t deserve that. He put his hand on her arm and said, “Thanks for asking, though. It’s really sweet of you. I appreciate it.”

“You have to work tonight?” she asked. “Or do you want to hang out? I’ve got a bottle of wine.”

The mention of alcohol made Steve feel physically ill. “Thanks, but I am working tonight. Study tomorrow over lunch?”

“Sure,” she agreed, looking at her watch. “Ah, we’ve gotta move or we’re gonna be late to Petersen’s class.”

As they hurried, Steve asked her, “How about you? How was your Thanksgiving?”

“Oh, fine,” she said, her eyes glancing at the notebook in Steve’s hand. “You know how parents can get.”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve said with a sarcastic scoff. “I _so_ know how parents can be.”

~*~

Jonathan felt more himself than he had in a long time. When he clocked in for work, Gloria even commented on it. “You finally go see a doctor, kiddo?”

“Yeah, I did,” he told her, taking the basket of film from her desk. “You can tell?”

Gloria laughed and pushed her glasses further up her nose. “Baby, the astronauts in orbit would be able to tell.”

Jonathan returned her laugh, still smiling as he went into the darkroom and got to work. Like he’d told Nancy, he could still feel the pressure of everyone’s emotions, but they’d been turned down like the volume on his stereo speakers. He was getting the hang of reading around the shield, but it was just so much easier to leave everyone to their own emotions and not let them put their shit on him. 

About an hour into his process, there was a knock on the door. “Just a minute!” he called back, covering everything that shouldn't be exposed to light with heavy black felt drapes. 

As he reached for it, he suddenly realized who was on the other side of the door. Smiling, Jonathan unlocked the door, pulled Nancy into the darkroom with him, then closed and locked it again. Feeling good, he kissed her, a smile on his lips.

Nancy laughed. 

“What are you doing here?” Jonathan asked, pressing a little closer and kissing her again. 

Turning her head away to free her lips, Nancy said, “I came to ask you something.”

Jonathan moved his lips to Nancy’s neck, nibbling his way toward her ear. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said, squirming under him, starting to get turned on. “We should probably save this for later. At home.”

“I know. You’re right,” he murmured, giving her one last kiss before taking a step back. He couldn’t break contact completely, so he kept her hand folded in his. “What did you want to ask?”

“I have an assignment for the paper,” she told him, swinging their clasped hands back and forth. “And I could use a photographer.”

“Oh, yeah?” Jonathan asked, feeling the mix of emotions she gave off. Everything from happiness, to bewilderment, to worry, to love. All at the same time. “Are you asking so you can keep an eye on me?”

“No,” she said, definitely lying. 

“No?”

She stepped closer to him and put her head against his shoulder. “I mean, yes. A little bit.”

“There we go.” Jonathan brushed his hand over Nancy’s hair. “When do you need me?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. There’s a protest at the hospital. It’s supposed to start at two, but I kind of wanted to get there early so we don’t miss it.”

“Well,” Jonathan told her. “I’ve got some homework I need to finish before Wednesday. Any chance you could come over later and help me with it?”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not in the mood to do homework?” Nancy said with a laugh. 

“I don’t know. I’m feeling good,” he said, kissing Nancy again. “I think I forgot what this used to feel like. Or I want to take advantage of it while it lasts.”

“Well, I suppose Steve’s working tonight.” Nancy tugged at his collar, straightening it. “I probably shouldn’t leave you alone that long. Who knows what you might get up to?”

Jonathan smiled. “So I’ll see you later?”

“I’ll head over to the apartment now. Get some of my other work done.” She kissed Jonathan once more. “Don’t skip your afternoon class.”

“I won’t,” he promised her. “I’ll be good.”

Chuckling, Nancy kissed Jonathan one more time. And then she left.

Jonathan found he was still smiling to himself half an hour later when he finished his work.

~*~

“Jonathan, hey,” Nancy called when she saw him approaching the corner at which they’d agreed to meet. The Northwestern Hospital was actually downtown, closer to his campus than hers, but Nancy still felt the urge to say, “Thanks for coming all the way over to help me.”

“Sure,” he told her, pulling Nancy into a quick kiss. He had his camera hanging around his neck, and a hat pulled down over his ears. “Who decides to hold an outdoor protest in December?”

“It’s being thrown by an activist group on campus,” Nancy told him, taking Jonathan’s gloves hand in hers and leading the way down the block. “I called and talked to them yesterday. Apparently, they’ve got some human rights concerns when it comes to the medical research being done here.”

“What kind of medical research?”

Nancy shrugged. “All kinds, I suppose.”

She stopped at the main hospital entrance. “They should start gathering around here soon.”

Walking around the space, Jonathan said, “Let me see if I can find the best angles.”

Nancy nodded and let him go, pulling a notepad and pen out of her bag. She started writing down questions as she thought of them, keeping an eye out for anyone interesting looking. 

She didn’t have to wait too long. A few people carrying signs showed up, and as soon as she read the first one, Nancy got a sinking feeling. It said, “What Happened to Katie Frazer?”

_Oh, shit_.

Clearing her throat and focusing, because she was a professional, thank you very much, Nancy approached the girl carrying the Katie Frazer sign. “Hi, excuse me. I’m Nancy Wheeler, the Daily Northwestern. Can I ask you a few questions about your protest?”

The girl looked at her friends before shrugging and saying, “Sure, I guess.”

“Okay,” Nancy said with what she hoped was a friendly smile. Behind her she heard the click of Jonathan’s camera. “I was told that you’re protesting human rights abuses in the medical research done here at Northwestern. Is that correct?”

“It is,” she said.

“Forgive me for my ignorance,” Nancy told her. “I’m a freshman, so maybe I haven’t heard, but are there any specific incidents you’re referring to?”

One of the guys in the group chimed in, “They do all sorts of crazy shit in there, man!”

“Some of their studies,” said the first woman, glaring at the man, “prey on people in vulnerable positions. They recruit people who feel like they can’t say no! It’s just not ethical.”

“What kind of vulnerable people?” Nancy asked her. “The homeless? Veterans?”

“Addicts,” she replied, sticking out her chin like she was trying not to get emotional. 

Looking up at the woman’s sign, Nancy asked, “Who is Katie Frazer?”

The woman held her sign up a little higher. “My friend. She came here last spring because she had a problem, and they were running an experimental treatment program. We haven’t heard from her since. And it’s like…” The woman’s voice broke. “It’s like no one cares. The study’s still going on. They’re still recruiting people!”

“Wow,” Nancy said, looking back at Jonathan and meeting his eye. He nodded, and she knew he could tell this story had grabbed her and wasn’t letting go. To the woman, she said, “Well, I think you’re brave to be out here drawing attention to the issue. Can I get your name for the article?”

The woman introduced herself as Rita Bowers, sophomore at Northwestern. 

“And can my friend get a picture of your sign?”

“Sure,” Rita said, holding the sign up and turning her face away from the camera. “Sorry, I don’t like seeing pictures of myself.”

“I’m the same way,” Jonathan told her with a little smile. Then he took a few pictures.

“Um, before we go,” Nancy said to Rita. “And off the record. Do you know what Katie was addicted to?”

Rita sighed and said, “She took pills. Apparently she’d been hiding the problem since high school. I…” Rita turned and bit her lip. “I made her go get help. It’s because of me she came here. And now no one can find her.”

“Did the police look?” Jonathan asked, lowering his camera. 

“Her parents have been getting letters saying she dropped out of school and moved to California, so the police declared the case solved.” Sighing, Rita muttered, “Fucking _letters_. They could have been sent by anybody.”

“Thank you for your time,” Nancy said, putting her notebook in her bag and walking away briskly, Jonathan hurrying to keep up with her. 

Nancy made it three blocks before she had to turn into an alley and cover her face with her hands as a sob escaped her. Jonathan wrapped his arms around her, his camera hard against her ribs. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he whispered, squeezing Nancy. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning toward Jonathan and burying her face in his shoulder. “I know it’s not the same. This girl isn’t Barb, but I look at her friend and–and I _know_ what she’s going through. I _know,_ Jonathan!”

Jonathan smiled at Nancy sadly, wiping some of the tears from her face. “Not so easy, dealing with other people’s emotions, is it?”

His careful smile made her laugh, and she had to wipe her nose on the sleeve of her coat to avoid getting snot everywhere.

Rubbing Nancy’s back, Jonathan asked, “What do you want to do?”

“We have to find out more about that study. We have to find Katie Frazer!” Nancy insisted. “What if-if somebody made a mistake and she got hurt? We can’t let them just cover it up. We can’t.”

“Can we get a picture of Katie?” Jonathan asked. “We could send it to El. Have her take a look? Try to find her?”

Nancy nodded, squeezing Jonathan’s hand. “That’s a great idea. I’ll see what I can dig up from the newspaper archives covering last year. Do you want to come with?”

“I have another class in an hour,” Jonathan told her, shaking his head. “Do you want to borrow the car so you can come over later?”

“Yes,” she said, taking the key when he gave it to her. “Thank you.”

“C’mon. I’ll show you where it’s parked.”

As Nancy let Jonathan take her hand and lead her through the streets of downtown, she realized that he was the best, most loyal, most supportive friend she could ever dream of having. It hurt to remember the things he’d said about himself while he was in pain.

Looking over, Jonathan asked, “What is it?”

“Thank you for helping me.”

He smiled and turned the corner, pointing out the ten-year-old Dodge Omni he and Steve shared. “Thank you for asking me,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Tonight,” Nancy replied, pressing a kiss to his cheek.


	8. Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan feels himself starting to slip again, Nancy digs into the mystery of the missing student, and Steve gets a call from his mother.

Steve thought about the letter for two days before he sent it. He read it about a dozen times, and almost threw it out just as many times. But he couldn’t quite do it. That was how he knew he had to send it. 

When Steve stopped back at the apartment between classes and work, he found an envelope and a stamp. Before he thought about it too hard, he tore the page from his notebook, folded it up, and stuffed it into the envelope. He almost sealed the envelope, but then he pulled the letter back out and wrote his phone number on the bottom, underneath his name. 

This was probably such a bad idea, but Steve finished packaging, sealing, and addressing the envelope. He didn’t put his name on the return address, just in case it would keep them from opening it. Fred Harrington was known to keep a grudge for a long time. 

He dropped it in the mailbox on the corner before work. 

The whole shift he felt distracted, wondering when his parents would get the letter and if they’d bother responding. When he almost poured a drink on his coworker, Ben, Steve knew he had to get it together. 

He went into the back and put his head down, taking a few deep breaths until he felt more centered. He was just at work. This was a job he was good at, a job he could do almost in his sleep. His parents probably wouldn’t respond to the letter at all. There was no use worrying about it.

Steve went and checked on his tables. Ten minutes later, while he was helping Ben bring pizzas out to a big group, he noticed Sarah seating someone in his section. It was Jonathan. 

After making sure his other tables didn’t need anything, Steve went over to Jonathan, sitting down across from him. “Hey. You hungry?” he asked.

“No, I ate,” Jonathan said, pressing his ankle to Steve’s under the table. “Are you okay?”

Steve narrowed his eyes at Jonathan, before slowly asking, “Why?”

“Sorry,” Jonathan said, looking down at his hands on the table. “With all the other voices muted, yours is, I don’t know, _louder_ than before. I heard you get upset.”

“All the way from the apartment?”

Jonathan nodded.

With a sigh, Steve pushed his hands back through his hair and sat back in the booth. He didn’t know how to feel about this. On the one hand, having a boyfriend who checked up on him while he was going through shit was nice. On the other hand, sharing all his emotions and explaining them all might be more trouble than it was worth. After all, it wasn’t like he could control what he was feeling. Not like he could control how he reacted, anyway. 

Still, this was Jonathan. Steve shared everything with him. Why not this, too?

Leaning forward, Steve told him, “I’m just freaking out a little because I sent my parents a letter.”

Jonathan reached for Steve’s hand, before pulling back again. “What kind of a letter?”

“Just giving them the apartment address and our phone number,” Steve assured him. “Just in case they missed me.”

Jonathan took a long look at Steve before asking, “Do you miss them?”

Steve scoffed. “Yeah, right. Miss those assholes? Why would I– Why would I bother missing _them_?”

Nodding, Jonathan looked out the window, and Steve followed his gaze. There was a little snow on the ground, and more was falling lazily out of the dark sky. “Sometimes, as much of a shithead as he is, I miss Lonnie,” Jonathan confessed.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Jonathan sighed. “But I don’t know if I actually miss _him_ , or if I miss having the dad he should have been, you know?”

Steve nodded. He understood the difference. 

Knocking his leg against Steve’s, Jonathan said, “Not too much left of your shift, huh? Want me to wait and walk you home?”

“You have, like homework and shit to catch up on,” Steve told him. “I don’t want to–”

“Steve,” Jonathan said, stopping him and giving him a look that said he wasn’t fooling anyone. 

Steve’s voice stuck in his throat when he nodded and said, “Yeah. Yeah, would you wait?”

“I can do that.”

Steve really, really wanted to kiss him. How did he get so lucky to have someone this sweet?

Jonathan smiled. “Yeah, me too.”

“I didn’t _say_ anything,” Steve teased him, getting up out of the booth and heading back to work.

~*~

Jonathan was at home, studying, when the phone rang. He sighed at being interrupted, but he still got up and answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Will,” said Jonathan’s brother. “We got your picture.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “Does El want to try looking?”

“She already tried.”

“And?”

“It’s–” Will sighed. “I tried helping too, but… We can’t find Katie. She might be gone, Jonathan.”

Jonathan’s stomach dropped. "Shit." He sighed, thinking about what their next steps could be. Nancy would know. "Thanks for trying. I really appreciate it."

"Of course," Will replied. After a second he asked, "How are you doing?"

"Pretty good," Jonathan admitted.

"Why just pretty good?" Will asked, and Jonathan could tell by the tone of his voice that he was worried. He wondered how scary it was for Will to see Jonathan as messed up as he had been. Jonathan had always been the big brother. He'd always protected Will from everything, not the other way around.

Maybe now that Will was older, he could handle the fact that Jonathan wasn't always going to be completely okay. 

He took a deep breath and admitted, "The shield feels like it's slipping. Like every time I put it back into place, it's just a little bit weaker. Nothing's bad yet, but I felt so much better last week." Jonathan dropped his voice to a whisper. "What if it keeps slipping? I can't put everyone through that again."

Will hummed sympathetically. Then he asked, "Can you drive back over the weekend?"

He thought about all the homework he had to do, and the fact that Steve was working both days and couldn't drive back with him. But he supposed the answer was, "Yeah, I could. Why?"

"You probably need more practice before you can really get the shield right on your own, outside the bath. It took me weeks to get the hang of it." Will gave a self-conscious little laugh.

His theory actually made a lot of sense. The practice he and El done over the Thanksgiving weekend had been intense, but the long-term work of it was going to come down to Jonathan. "Yeah, okay," he said. "I'll try to make it back."

"Cool."

"I gotta go let Nancy know you couldn't find the missing girl," Jonathan told his brother. "I'll talk to you soon."

"Bye."

Jonathan hung up the phone and looked at the clock. Nancy said she'd be working at the newspaper office to meet her deadline for some article about the student council. Maybe he could find her there. He knew she wouldn't want him to wait before telling her about this. Even after she'd written a little article about the protest, she hadn't been able to let go of the mystery of Katie Frazer's disappearance.

He put the last bit of his homework back in his bag, and then walked over to Steve's work. He told the hostess, Sarah, that he just needed to talk to Steve for a second, then went back outside to wait. It was only a few minutes before Steve came out to meet him.

"What's up?" He asked, wrapping his arms around himself to keep warm without his jacket. "Something wrong?"

"You remember that missing girl I told you about?"

Steve nodded, concern rolling off him in waves.

"El couldn't find her. I was going to go find Nancy and let her know," Jonathan said, a little overwhelmed by Steve's emotions. He closed his eyes and put Steve on the other side of his shield. He hated to do it, but he couldn't afford to lose his grip. Not now. "Can I get the car keys?"

"Yeah, sure," Steve said, pulling the keys out of his pocket. 

As Jonathan took them, he got halfway to kissing Steve in thanks before realizing they were standing out on the street in front of Steve's workplace. He pulled back quickly. "Shit. Sorry."

Chuckling, Steve said, "Don't worry about it. I'll see you later tonight?"

"Yeah," Jonathan told him. "Yeah, definitely."

With a smile and a nod, Steve retreated back into the restaurant. 

Jonathan watched him through the window, just for a moment. Steve tucked his hair behind his ear and smiled as he approached a table of customers. The fact that Jonathan couldn't just kiss him goodbye made him feel more frustrated than it normally did. He felt snippy and angry, and he knew it wasn't just the bad news about the missing girl. 

It was the baseline pressure on his head amping up again.

Jonathan sighed. He walked to where the car was parked and drove over to Nancy's campus. He'd dropped her off at the building where the newspaper office was before, so after parking the car in the neighborhood near campus, he walked toward it. Luckily, the doors to the building were still unlocked. 

Walking into the offices, Jonathan looked around, but he didn't see Nancy right away. Shit. What if he missed her?

"Can I help you?" some guy asked. He had dark hair and dark-rimmed glasses and an expensive looking dress shirt and sweater. It made Jonathan, in his plain t-shirt under his winter jacket, feel really out of place.

"Yeah, um," he said, looking around again, hoping to see Nancy. When he didn't, he told glasses guy, "I'm looking for Nancy Wheeler. Is she here?"

"She actually went to go get something to eat," he said. "She should be back any minute, if you wanted to wait." Glasses guy pointed to a row of chairs before sitting down at a desk nearby.

"Yeah, thanks," Jonathan said, sitting down.

Glasses guy gave Jonathan a look, then sat back in his chair and said, "I take it you're the fiance?"

Unable to process the question because of how unexpected it was, Jonathan asked, "What?"

"You're not Nancy's fiance? Jonathan? The one who was in the hospital?" The guy shook his head. "Sorry, man. I guess I just assumed."

"No," Jonathan said as he realized what must have happened. "I mean, yeah, that's me. I just didn't hear you right … the first time. Sorry."

"I'm Brian Eldridge," he said. "Nancy's editor. She's told me you're a photographer? That you both had internships at the paper in your hometown?"

"Yeah," Jonathan said, not mentioning the fact that they'd been fired and almost killed by their old editor. 

"I approved the pictures you took of the protest Nancy covered last week," he said, turning in his chair and shuffling through some papers before pulling something out. Jonathan could see they were photos, and he assumed they were his. "These are really good. Perfect contrast for newsprint."

Jonathan felt his face go hot, until he realized his shield was slipping again and he could tell Brian felt threatened. Threatened by _what_? Jonathan's pictures? Carefully, he replied, "Thanks."

"I can see why Nancy wanted to use you, instead of one of our staff photographers." He set the photos on his desk and leaned back. "She's got a great eye. Lots of talent, especially for a freshman."

Shifting in his chair, Jonathan said, "I know."

"When Nancy told me she had a fiance, all I could think was, 'What a waste,' you know?" He reached into a drawer of his desk and pulled out a bottle of liquor. "She's getting this world-class Northwestern education, and for what? To become a photographer's housewife?" Brian opened the bottle and poured a shot into the coffee mug on his desk. 

Shuddering at the way the smell of the alcohol – rum or something, he couldn't see the label – made his mouth water, Jonathan took a deep breath. Blowing up at Nancy's editor the way he wanted to wouldn't do any good. Jonathan didn’t want to hurt her career here any more than he already had. He insisted, "Nancy could never be a housewife. She doesn't want that life. I don't either."

Brian gave Jonathan an assessing look. "How long have you two been together?"

"Three years," Jonathan told him, trying not to watch as Brian sipped his drink, but failing. He could feel how much easier it would be to block everyone out if he just had one swallow. Maybe two.

_Shit_.

He was supposed to be _done_ with this feeling.

"That's a long time," Brian said, impressed. He picked up the bottle and held it out to Jonathan. "You want a drink while you wait?"

_Yes_. 

"No," he said. "No, I'm good. Thanks."

Shrugging, Brian put the cap on the bottle and stashed it back in his desk drawer. "All I'm saying," he continued, "is that I hope you recognize what a shame it would be to keep Nancy from making it as a reporter."

"I do," Jonathan insisted. Keeping his voice as level as he could, he added, "But if you think I could keep Nancy from doing whatever she sets out to do, then you don't know her as well as you think you do."

Sipping his drink and wincing a little, Brian gave Jonathan a long look. "Well, I'm sure you do know her better. Three years. Since you guys were, what? Fifteen? Sixteen?" He shook his head. "That _is_ a while."

Just then, Nancy came through the main door of the offices along with two other girls, much to Jonathan's relief. She stopped short when she saw him, suddenly so concerned it made Jonathan's teeth ache. "Hey! What's going on?"

"Can I talk to you?" Jonathan asked her. "Will called."

The terror making his head ache told Jonathan he'd made her jump to the worst conclusion.

"No," he said, pressing back at the intense pressure in his temple. "It's just about that thing we asked El to do. The family's fine."

Nancy's relief brought a little relief to Jonathan as well. "Yeah, come on. Let's go talk at my desk."

Jonathan gave a final, polite nod to Brian, then followed Nancy into the main room of the office. "You have your own desk?" he asked, thinking about how highly Brian seemed to value her. 

"Usually they're reserved for upperclassmen," Nancy told him, "but my editor knows how much I hate studying in my dorm room."

Yeah, either that or he was playing favorites for some other, less innocent, reason.

They stopped at a desk that was at the far end of the room from the other people still working at this hour. Nancy pulled a chair over from her neighbor's desk and nodded for him to sit down in it. "What did Will say?"

"He and El can't find Katie," Jonathan said, sitting down with a sigh. He vaguely wondered how many of the desks in this office might have alcohol hidden in them, like Brian's. Then he got mad at himself for even thinking about it. He didn't need alcohol to cope. Not anymore. He was _done_. "They think she might be dead."

Nancy nodded gravely, looking away from Jonathan and sniffling just a bit. "Well, that's what we were afraid of, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Jonathan reached forward and put his hand on Nancy's. Her grief was so loud, he had to take a deep breath, close his eyes, and reset his shield as best he could to withstand the onslaught. He supposed he could take his hand off Nancy's, but he could also feel the little bit of comfort she drew from him. How could he deny her that? "What do you want to do next?"

"We have to learn more about that study," Nancy told him. "Figure out who's involved. Maybe convince someone to talk to us off the record. If we go in looking as non threatening as possible, someone might open up about what happened to Katie."

"What kind of study was it again?" Jonathan asked, pretty sure he knew the answer. 

"Treatment for addiction," Nancy said offhand with a sigh, opening one of her drawers and pulling out a folder. "I managed to track down the paperwork that the study authors filed with the university, but–"

Interrupting Nancy, Jonathan said, "I'll do it. I'll go in." He nervously rubbed his hands together.

"What do you mean, you'll go in?" Nancy asked, putting her hands over his and getting him to meet her eyes. "Jonathan?"

He licked his lips and looked at her before telling her, "I know what it's like, okay? Not being able to stop doing something, even when you know it's bad for you. Maybe I wasn’t drinking enough to be really addicted, but I think I can convince them I am. I think I can get in."

"Into the _study_?" Nancy asked him, and he half expected her to forbid it. Instead, she brightened up a little, "That could actually work." And then there it was, the worry caught up with her. "But, what if something happens to you? Jonathan?"

"It's a risk," he told her, reaching over to cup the side of her face in his hand. "But if we don't find her, who will?"

"Jonathan." Nancy's tone was flat, but her emotions were so strong.

"And–" Jonathan dropped his eyes, looking down at the floor as he admitted, "And maybe while I'm there, they can help me."

Nancy put her hands on Jonathan's face, getting him to look up at her. "El helped you. I thought… Have you been drinking again?"

Jonathan shook his head, her hands still on his face. "No, but I feel things slipping again. And… and I still _want_ to."

"Baby," Nancy whispered, her concern more overwhelming than anything he'd felt since Thanksgiving.

"Will wants me to come back home over the weekend. He says I need more practice, and I'm sure I do," Jonathan told her, laughing nervously. "I'm going to let El help me, I swear. I just thought… if I'm struggling with this, I might as well use it to do something good."

Nancy nodded and pulled Jonathan into a hug, which he returned gratefully. "It's up to you," she insisted. "We can find another way."

"We don't have to," he insisted.

Pulling back, Nancy nodded. "Okay," she said, turning toward her desk and shuffling through her papers. "Okay, let's make a plan."

While she got organized, Jonathan leaned close and asked in a soft voice, "Did you tell your editor that we're engaged?"

Nancy pressed her lips together. "Yes."

"That's funny, because I don't remember proposing," he said, watching her profile and reading the embarrassment in her emotions. "Did you _want_ me to propose?"

"No!" Nancy exclaimed, a little too fast, and a little too loud. She put her hand over her mouth, more embarrassed than before. "I mean, not _yet_. And that's a decision we'd have to make with Steve. We can't all…" She let her breath out in a huff. "We'd have to have a very good reason, to make it worth the other person not being included."

"Agreed," Jonathan told her. He looked around the deserted newspaper office. "Will you come home? I mean, with me. To the apartment. Or do you still need to work here?"

"Just let me finish one thing," Nancy told him, leaning close and placing a kiss on Jonathan's lips. "Then we can go."

~*~

On Friday afternoon, Steve watched Jonathan take the car and drive away, heading back to Springfield. Steve went back into the apartment, and the emptiness felt really weird. 

Steve actually could not remember the last time he'd spent the night without Jonathan. It had to have been the night before Steve had graduated high school. No, wait. He'd snuck Jonathan into his parents’ house that night. He remembered showing off his cap and gown.

Nope, he couldn't remember the last time it had happened.

It was too quiet. Steve tried to sleep that night, but a nightmare woke him up after just an hour. He pouted, realizing it was too late to call Nancy. If she wasn't asleep already, her roommate likely was. She'd bitch him out if he called this late. 

Frustrated, he banged around the apartment until the phone rang. Terrified of what reason could have prompted a call at midnight, Steve picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"El says you can't sleep," Jonathan's voice said, sounding all soft and indulgent. "I thought I'd call."

Steve laughed. He brought the cordless into the bedroom with him. "You're having our sister check up on me?"

"I wasn't wrong," Jonthan replied. 

Steve got back into bed and stared at the ceiling. "Do you remember the last night we spent apart?"

"No," Jonathan admitted. "When was it?"

"I can't remember either," Steve told him. "I thought maybe you'd know. It had to have been sometime near the end of my senior year. Right?"

"Yeah," Jonathan said. "Though your parents had started to let up a lot after you got into State. You spent a lot of nights at my house."

Steve sighed, missing the feeling of Jonathan laying next to him. "How was the drive?"

Jonathan chatted with him about how the roads were pretty clear, despite the newly-fallen snow. Then he talked about the new improvements Hopper and El were starting to make to the basement, building a game room or something. Eventually, Jonathan asked, "Did you fall asleep?"

"Mm, almost," Steve told him. "You're the best. I love you."

"Love you too, Steve," Jonathan murmured. "Good night."

"Night."

When Steve woke up in the morning, the bed was too cold. He pouted, but at least he'd slept. 

He went over to the student gym, just for lack of anything better to do, and managed to join a pick up basketball game that was pretty fun. He exchanged numbers with a couple of the guys, thinking it would be good to make a habit of this. Keep healthy, or whatever. 

Except he missed Jonathan so much it hurt. Jesus, he was pathetic. 

He used the payphone at the gym to call Nancy. "Hey, it's me," he said. "I have to work soon, but can you stay over tonight?"

"Last night was rough, huh?" Nancy asked him. 

"I mean, Jonathan called, so that was nice, but yeah. Rough."

"Lucky for you," she said, "I was already planning on it. I just have to stop by the newspaper for a little bit, but then I'll be on the next bus downtown."

"Don't come by too late," he told her. "I don't want you walking alone."

"You're sweet. I'll see you tonight."

"Yeah, tonight."

After work, Steve was exhausted, but he still hurried home, just the tiniest bit anxious that Nancy wouldn't be there. But she was. She was sitting there in her pajamas, under a blanket, watching something on TV, and she smiled when he came in the door.

He got his jacket and boots off, and then climbed under the blanket with her. Petting Steve's hair, she said, "I talked to Jonathan. He said everything's going well. He should be driving back in the morning."

"Thank god," Steve sighed. 

Nancy laughed and kissed him.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm super pathetic," he muttered, turning so he could look up at her. "How do you do it?"

"Sleep alone?" she asked, and Steve nodded. "I don't know. I guess I try to think about anything else other than the fact that I am alone." She kissed Steve again before whispering, "I do sleep better when I'm here with you guys."

"Good," Steve told her.

When Jonathan was back home after Steve's lunch shift on Sunday, he might have been a little quick to grab him and kiss him. Jonathan laughed. "I missed you, too."

"If you have to go home again," Steve said, pushing his cold fingers up underneath Jonathan's sweater, "I'm calling in sick. I'm coming with you."

Jonathan laughed, but he returned Steve's kisses. 

"Did it work?" Steve asked as Jonathan pushed his coat off. "Do you feel any better?"

"It helped," Jonathan told him with a nod. "I'm glad I went."

Steve decided he couldn't really hold that against Jonathan. "Good."

He was about to goad Jonathan into some more kisses, and maybe taking things into the bedroom, when the phone rang.

Jonathan was closer, so he picked it up, "Hello?" A second later, he looked up at Steve. "Yeah, he's here. Hang on."

Covering the mouthpiece and holding it out toward Steve, Jonathan said, "It's for you."

"Who is it?"

Jonathan shrugged.

Steve took the phone, grinning when Jonathan circled around him, hugging him from behind. "Yeah?"

"Steven, it's your mother." 

Stunned, all Steve could do was reply, "Oh. Hi."

Jonathan loosened his hold on Steve, but kept his hand on Steve's shoulder as he came around to look at Steve's face.

Harriet said, "I got your letter."

"Good," he told her, not quite sure what to say.

"I'm–I'm glad you sent it," she said, tripping over her words in a way he hadn't heard her do before. "About a year ago, I went by the old Byers place. It had been sold to someone else. I didn't know where you'd gone."

"I sent a postcard with my new address like a week after I moved," he told her. "And I never heard anything. I thought you'd gotten it."

"That was when your father was still in the house," she said, and Steve grabbed onto Jonathan, steadying himself. "He must have thrown it away before I saw it."

"What do you mean 'was still in the house'? You guys separated?"

"Mm-hmm," Harriet murmured. "The divorce should be finalized by the end of the year."

"That's…" Steve came up empty. As much as he knew his parents weren't good for each other, somehow he still hadn't pictured them ever getting divorced. He wondered if his leaving had anything to do with them breaking up. "How do you feel about that?"

She was silent for a long moment, and then she said, "It was time."

"Yeah."

"Well, I'll let you go," she said. "You're probably busy."

He wasn’t, but he still said, "Yeah."

"But, you could call me sometime, okay?"

"Okay, Mom. I will," Steve told her, still kind of in shock as he hung up the phone.

"What is it?" Jonathan asked, leading Steve over to the couch and setting him down there. 

Shaking his head, still trying to understand it, Steve told him, "My parents are getting divorced."

Jonathan hugged Steve tightly, but he didn't say anything. Really, what was there to say? Steve sure as fuck didn't know.


	9. The Study

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan and Nancy's investigation into the hospital leads to a fight.

Monday morning, between class and work in the photo lab, Jonathan called the phone number Nancy had given him. The pay phones in the art building weren't exactly private, but they were also hardly used, so he felt comfortable enough making the call. When someone answered, he said, "Hi, yeah. I heard you were recruiting for a study about addiction? Are you still… I mean, can I…?"

"You need some help, honey?" the woman on the other end of the line asked, her voice loud and brassy, but kind.

Jonathan took a deep breath. His extra lessons over the weekend had helped, but he couldn't shake the thought that just a little bit of a drink would be so much easier than all the work it took to keep his shields up and tightly closed. "Yeah."

"May I ask what substance it is that you're having a problem with?"

"Alcohol," he told her. He might as well be honest where he could. Otherwise, he wouldn't get any help out of this whole operation, and it wouldn't be worth the risk.

The woman gave a tut, but she said, "Why don't we get you set up with an appointment? Our staff clinicians will do an initial screening, and we'll either route you toward a more traditional twelve-step program, or toward our experimental program. Does that sound okay?"

Jonathan wasn't sure what other choice he had. If he was going to get close enough to figure out what might have gone wrong with Katie Frazer, he needed to get into the experimental program. If the only way was through their bullshit screening program, then that's what he was going to do. "Sure, yeah. Okay. When do you want me to come in?"

He made an appointment for the following day.

When he got back to the apartment after his afternoon class, Steve and Nancy were both there. Nancy was working at the little card table they still had in place of a kitchen table, while Steve was passed out on the couch. After that call from his mom the evening before, he'd had a rough time sleeping. Jonathan couldn't say he blamed him.

Sitting across from Nancy, Jonathan told her, "I've got an appointment at the hospital tomorrow. There's some screening I have to pass."

"What about the hospital?" Steve asked from the couch, not as asleep as Jonathan had assumed.

Nancy said, "I told you about the girl who's missing? Jonathan's helping me look into it."

Sitting up, Steve narrowed his eyes at them. "How are you helping?"

"I guess…" Jonathan said, sharing a look with Nancy. "I guess I'm going in undercover. That's what you'd call it, right?" He looked to Nancy.

"Right," she said. "Jonathan's going in as a patient. Just to ask a few questions. Nothing big."

"Nothing big?" Steve asked, clasping his hands together and looking down at them. "So, this girl goes to be a patient there, and no one's seen her since. And how is it a good idea to send Jonathan to the same place? Nancy?"

"It was my idea," Jonathan told Steve, almost sickened by the anger coming off him. Jonathan closed his eyes and blocked Steve out, unable to have a rational argument feeling this way. "I want to help."

Steve stood up, pacing with his hands on his hips, "It's not your job, Jonathan. I mean, we _just_ got you back two weeks ago. You had to _leave_ over the weekend and go home, just to cope. Babe, you're not ready to do something like this."

Standing up to face him, Jonathan told Steve, "It's _my_ decision. Yes, I get that you're worried about me, but it's not your decision to make!"

Breathing hard, Steve turned on Nancy. "There has to be some other way. Something you haven't tried. Nancy?"

"I–I… No," Nancy said. "I tried everything. I can't get anything else without someone on the inside."

"And that someone has to be Jonathan?" 

Her voice small, Nancy told Steve, "He fits the criteria."

Jonathan knew it had to be him, precisely because of how he'd been drinking. Still, Nancy all but admitted that she knew he was, if not an addict, then damn close to becoming one. That admission hurt worse than when Jonathan had admitted it to himself. He wanted her to think well of him. He always had. 

Steve scoffed. "I can't believe you guys! I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm glad you want to help people. But can we _please_ go just one whole year without putting ourselves in danger? Please? For me?"

"If we don't help her, who will?" Nancy asked him.

" _Anyone_ else," Steve insisted. "This is the same bullshit you guys pulled in senior year. Or that shit with Mrs. Driscoll and the flayed or whatever at the hospital! Making plans behind my back? Without me? To go up against people who are probably powerful? People who make college kid addicts disappear? No." He turned to Jonathan. "You're not going to that appointment."

Jonathan bristled at the command. He knew Steve was probably worried, but he couldn't feel it. All he could feel was his own anger at being ordered around, like some sort of child. "Don't tell me what to do, Steve."

"Nancy?" Steve asked. "Please?"

"It's Jonathan's decision," she said, her jaw squared defiantly as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Steve shook his head and pushed his hands back into his hair. "Fine," he said with a scoff, letting his hands drop. "Fine, do whatever the fuck you want. But don't expect me to sit here and watch it while it happens."

Without meeting Jonathan's eyes again, Steve turned away. He grabbed his backpack from the ground, stuck his feet into his boots, and took his coat with him as he left the apartment. The door slammed behind him. 

Jonathan shared a stunned look with Nancy. "What just happened?"

"I don't know," she said, taking a few steps towards the door. "Do you think we should go after him?"

Jonathan sighed. "Maybe he just needs to cool off for awhile. He'll be back later."

At least, that's what Jonathan hoped would happen. Steve would understand eventually, wouldn't he? 

~*~

Steve stomped away from the apartment without any sort of plan. He couldn’t believe Jonathan was risking himself like that. The sad thing was his lack of surprise over Nancy letting Jonathan do it. She saw a mystery and she just _had_ to go after it. He loved that about her, except when it put her and the other people he loved in danger. 

Fuck, how was he supposed to deal with this on top of everything else? Finals were coming up at school, and Steve’s mom wanted to talk to him, but she and his dad were getting divorced, and Jonathan was okay, but not all the way better, and, and, and…

Fuck, he couldn’t breathe. 

Steve sat on a low stone wall next to the sidewalk and put his head down. He counted the seconds as he breathed and that helped. Except there was ice on the wall and it was starting to melt and seep through his jeans. 

Shit. 

He took a few more deep breaths, and then figured he should probably go home. He was still mad as hell, though. What if he yelled at them? What if he did something stupid, like love them so hard and with so much worry, that he couldn’t help but do something stupid to ease that worry? Something like break up with them?

No, Steve had to cool off. He couldn’t go back while he was still this mad. He’d do something stupid, he knew he would. He’d pick a fight, like he had when he thought Nancy had cheated on him with Jonathan back in Junior year. Or he’d get drunk off his ass, like he had Halloween of senior year. 

He didn’t want to be the kind of guy who repeated the same mistakes over and over. That was his dad, not him.

But where could he go to cool off? It wasn’t late yet, but it was starting to get there. Maybe a hotel or something? But then he’d be all by himself, just getting mad all over again. 

He wished Robin was here. She would know how to cheer him up. Actually… He stuck his hand into his pocket and came out with a bunch of coins. He’d been saving them for the laundry machines. But this was a better use. 

There was a pay phone at the convenience store at the next corner. Steve went over there, picked up the handset, and stuck a quarter in the slot. After he dialed Robin’s number, a recording asked him for another dollar, so he stuck four more quarters into it. Finally, it started ringing. 

It rang three times, and then Robin picked up. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Hey, it’s Steve,” he said.

“Steve?” Robin cried. Then her voice went softer, “What happened?”

“I got into a fight with Nancy and Jonathan. I stormed out and I don’t want to go back while I’m still mad. I need you to tell me what to do.”

“What was the fight about?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed, leaning against the wall of the phone booth. “Everything. Jonathan’s sick, and he’s not taking it as seriously as he should be. And Nancy’s egging him on. And…” Steve gave a sad little laugh. “My parents are getting divorced, and I…” He hadn’t said this part out loud yet. “I kind of got the impression that it’s my fault. Like when I left, it broke something about them. Shit, I don’t know.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s gonna be okay,” she insisted. 

Pressing his thumb against the bridge of his nose, Steve asked her, “Yeah, but how? How do I get back to okay?”

Robin’s voice was no-nonsense when she asked, “Do you have any friends nearby? Someone you could stay with?”

Steve looked around. “I mean, I suppose my friend Stef lives pretty close to here. She might let me crash.”

“Good. Go over there. Get some sleep. Sleep makes everything better. Go home in the morning. And…” She got even more serious. “Whatever you do, don’t have sex with Stef.”

Steve made an offended scoff. “I would never, Robin! Robin, I wouldn’t!”

“I know,” she said, happily. “It was a joke.”

Steve surprised himself and laughed. “Okay, yeah,” he told her. “Ha, ha.” In a softer voice, he said, “Thanks, Robin.”

“Call me tomorrow night, okay? Let me know how it goes.”

“I will,” he promised. 

When he hung up the phone, he felt lighter. Less angry. He took a few more deep breaths and went over to Stef’s place. He knocked on the door and eventually she opened it. 

“Steve?”

“Hey,” he said, trying not to be too embarrassed. “Sorry to come over so late. And, you know, unannounced. I had a fight with my…” Shit, he almost said _boyfriend_. “With my roommate. Would you mind if I crashed here tonight?”

Her eyes wide, Stef nodded and made room for him in the doorway. “Yeah, sure. What did you and Jonathan fight about?”

“Just a whole bunch of shit that had been brewing for awhile,” Steve told her, going into the apartment and taking his boots off at the door. “I think we’ll be okay. I mean, I _hope_ we will. I just needed some space. For a little bit.”

Nodding, Stef closed the apartment door and said, “Yeah, I get that way with my sister sometimes. We had to share a room for twelve long years. Sometimes you do need a break. My couch is free for the night, if you want to take it.”

“I really appreciate it. Thanks.”

“No problem,” she said with a smile. “Did you want to go to sleep, or do you still have some studying to do too?”

“Actually, yeah,” Steve told her, opening his backpack. “I still need to finish a couple assignments for tomorrow.”

“Then let’s get to it!” she said brightly, and Steve maybe felt a little bit better.

~*~

When Nancy woke up, it was to the alarm clock beeping, telling her it was time to head back to campus so she could make her 9:00 class. She looked over and the bed was empty. 

Oh, god. What did that mean?

Pulling on some of the clean clothes she'd brought over from her dorm, Nancy went looking for the others. She found Jonathan sitting at the kitchen table, sadly eating a bowl of cereal. 

"Did he come home?" she asked Jonathan.

He didn't look over at her, but he shook his head.

Sitting down across from him, feeling sick, Nancy asked, "Did you sleep?"

Jonathan shook his head again. 

Nancy reached across the table, putting her hand over Jonathan's. "Maybe," she said, having to stop and lick her lips while she tried to organize her thoughts. "Maybe Steve's right. It's not worth the risk."

"We don't even know if there _is_ a risk," he said, shaking his head and still looking down into his bowl. "I mean, it's a hospital, Nancy. I bet Katie is fine and I…" He looked up at Nancy, pressing his lips together. "I think I might really need the help."

Nancy wanted to argue with him, wanted to tell him that he was fine. Or at least that he'd be fine with El's help. But she realized she couldn't know that. It had taken her such a long time before to realize that something was wrong with Jonathan in the first place. She hadn't seen it. Either she hadn't been looking or Jonathan had been hiding it, or both. If he was asking now, he had to be serious. 

"If you want help," Nancy told him. "I will help you get it. I promise."

He finally looked up at her and gave a little smile. "Thanks, Nancy."

"Do you want me to come with to your appointment? I'd only miss…" She thought about it for a second. "Three classes. It's fine."

Jonathan stood up, and Nancy stood up with him. He took her hands and held them close to his chest. He looked her in the eyes and said, "I'll be fine. You shouldn't miss class because of me."

Nancy gave him a hard look, wondering what, exactly, he meant by that. "Promise me, though. If you need my help you will _tell me_ next time."

Giving a tiny little snort of a laugh, Jonathan nodded. "I will. I promise."

"Good." 

Nancy went up on her toes and kissed him. 

As she dropped back down, she asked, "Meet me here later? If Steve isn't back by then, we'll go find him."

Jonathan nodded, but he looked saddened at the mention of Steve's absence. Honestly, Nancy hadn't expected him to be gone this long either. Just the weekend prior, he'd complained about spending one night by himself. And then he didn't come back overnight? 

God, she hoped he was okay.

Jonathan wrapped his arms around Nancy. "I'm sure he's fine." 

"Do you know where he would go?"

Jonathan shrugged and shook his head. "I mean, I would say Robin's, but she's in Hawkins and I don't think he would have driven that far just because he was mad at us. Actually, I'm sure he didn't go very far."

"Maybe he called her, though," Nancy suggested. "If I get a chance today, I'll try to get in touch. See if she knows where he went."

"That's a good idea." Jonathan yawned as he hugged Nancy again. Then he lifted up his wrist and said, "Shit, I've got to go."

"Yeah, me too," she told him, giving him one last kiss. "I love you."

Jonathan smiled at her, and Nancy felt a little less sick to her stomach. "I love you, too."

~*~

Jonathan walked into the hospital, and eventually found his way to the right room, checking in just on time. A few minutes later, a nurse called him back and brought him to an exam room. It reminded him of the fact that, except for his recent trip to see Dr. Owens, he hadn’t been to the doctor in a long time. In fact, he’d probably still had his mom with him the last time he went. 

The nurse took his weight, blood pressure, and temperature, and then told him the doctor would be right in.

After twenty minutes of sitting there, tapping his thumbs on his thighs and trying not to talk himself out of this, a doctor finally showed up. He was a nice looking man with a few grey hairs in his otherwise straight, black hair. He was clean shaven, but Jonathan could tell he’d probably have a full beard by the weekend if he didn’t shave. 

“Hi, Jonathan. I’m Dr. Lahey. Our program officer says that you’re interested in joining our treatment study.”

Remembering that he wanted to figure out what was going on behind the scenes here, Jonathan pushed around his shields, making a connection with Dr. Lahey. So far he seemed mildly curious, but not much else. 

“Yeah,” Jonathan told him. “I’ve been … Well, school has been a rough transition, you know?”

“You’re a freshman here at Northwestern?”

Jonathan shook his head. "UIC, but my girlfriend goes here. She's the one who heard about your study."

Dr. Lahey's curiosity ticked up a notch. Looking at the paper in front of him, he told Jonathan, "It says here that you've been having problems with alcohol?"

Jonathan nodded.

"Why don't you tell me the behaviors you'd like to fix?"

God, how was he supposed to explain this? He barely even understood it himself. "There was all this noise in my head, you know?" 

Oh, that sparked something in Dr. Lahey, for sure.

"It was drowning everything else out. And I noticed when I drank, the noise got quieter." Okay. He had Dr. Lahey on the hook. He just had to finish off. "The quiet was such a relief. But then when the drink wore off, it's like it got even louder. I had to keep drinking more and… I didn't like who I was turning into."

Dr. Lahey looked at him, calculating something for a moment. "You say when you were drinking, in the past tense. Has it been a while since your last drink?"

Jonathan nodded, and that seemed to make the doctor feel pleased. "It's been a little over two weeks. I thought I was doing good, but…" He shrugged. "I don't like feeling like I need it."

"Okay, well that's a good sign," Dr. Lahey told him. "We're definitely recruiting people who want to do the work of getting sober."

 _Jesus,_ getting _sober?_ Was that what Jonathan was trying to do? He guessed the term fit, but it made his skin crawl uncomfortably. He’d never had so much to drink at a time that he ever felt anything _but_ sober. It seemed unfair, somehow, that other people could drink and have fun with it. Jonathan had known, even before the past few weeks, that he couldn’t. Not with his family history. 

"What do you guys do?" Jonathan asked him, deciding to focus on the reason he was here. "Like, how is this different than other ways of getting help?"

"Well, first of all, we're selecting not only for substance abuse, but also for certain structures in the brain that we think might actually increase the risk for substance abuse behaviors. If you fit the criteria, which I'm warning you now, very few people do, then the treatment would be primarily with medicines. Perhaps with a few days of inpatient treatment."

"You mean stay in the hospital?" Jonathan wondered if that was the sort of treatment Katie hadn’t come back from.

Dr. Lahey nodded. "How does that sound to you?"

"How would you look for this brain structure thing?" Jonathan asked him, listening very carefully, because this was the sort of shit Nancy was going to need to know.

"We've actually developed a non-invasive technique which measures how your brain interprets symbols. It's quite easy. We could do it now, actually."

Shit, okay. Jonathan was going to have to figure this out on the fly. If he failed out at this point, he didn't know how the hell they were ever going to find out what happened to Katie. "Sure."

"Good." The doctor took a deck of playing cards out of his lab coat pocket, pulling them out of the box and shuffling them.

"Seriously?" Jonathan asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Dr. Lahey laughed. "Don't be deceived. This is a very scientific test." He dealt out three cards, all face up. The first was the Queen of Diamonds, then the two of clubs, followed by the eight of spades. "All you have to do is choose one of these cards."

"Okay." Jonathan started reaching for the eight, but Dr. Lahey suddenly felt disappointed. He moved his hand over the two, but the emotion from Lahey didn't change until his hand hovered over the Queen. The thought that Jonathan might pick the Queen made the doctor hopeful and a little excited.

Figuring that was it, Jonathan picked up the Queen. "This one."

"Okay," he said, taking the card from Jonathan. He dealt three more cards. “Go ahead and choose again.”

It was the three of diamonds that Dr. Lahey got excited about this time. “Here,” Jonathan told him, pointing. 

“Last time.”

Jonathan picked the ace of clubs, and the doctor felt ecstatic in an almost desperate way. “Thank you, Jonathan. I am going to recommend that you stop by the desk on your way out and make an appointment to come back sometime in the next week or so. We’ll set a longer appointment so we can do a few more tests and really go through the paperwork with you as we get you enrolled.”

“Okay, sure,” Jonathan said, standing up when the doctor did and shaking his hand. 

Jonathan held it together long enough to make the appointment and get out of the building before letting his hands start to shake. He knew what they were looking for, and it gave him a very bad feeling about what that meant for Katie Frazer.

~*~

Nancy made it back to the apartment first. She knew that would probably happen. Jonathan had another class after his appointment at the hospital. This close to the end of the semester, he couldn’t miss it. She occupied her time waiting by tearing through the homework she’d brought with her, and then starting in on her report for the newspaper about the student council meeting earlier that day. It was due back on Brian’s desk by nine the next morning, to make the Thursday edition of the paper the day after. She might as well get it done. 

She was halfway through her notes when Jonathan came into the apartment, tossing his bag onto the couch and sitting down across from Nancy. His leg bounced, either with excitement or nervousness. “What happened?” she asked him. 

“I know what they’re looking for,” he told her, leaning forward over the table.

“The people running the study?” Nancy reached out, putting her hand over Jonathan’s.

He nodded. 

“What?”

“They’re looking for people like… like _me._ ” Nancy must have looked confused, because before she could ask what he meant by that, he clarified. “People like Will. Like El.”

“Ohhh,” Nancy said, finally understanding. “Holy shit! Why? For what?”

“I don’t know,” Jonathan told her. “But I don’t think I should go to the next appointment. Just something about the way the doctor felt after I passed his test. He was too excited. Too _invested_.”

“Maybe Steve was right,” Nancy told Jonathan. “We have to find him.”

“I can find him,” Jonathan insisted. He closed his eyes and shivered a little before opening them. “Yeah, I can find him. He didn’t go very far.”

“Let’s go.”


	10. Breaking In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin helps with the investigation.

“Thanks for letting me hang out after class,” Steve told Stef as he finished filling out his assignment. “I’ll get out of your hair and go home in a bit. I just… didn’t want to be the first one there, you know?”

“In case you have to leave again?” Stef asked, not looking up from the flash card she was making. 

“You get it.”

Steve looked back through his text book for the answer to the next question on the page. He got halfway through writing the answer when there was a knock on the door. 

Stef gave Steve a look, and then got up to answer it. Steve stood up, too. Just in case. 

When she opened the door, Jonathan and Nancy were standing there. “Hi,” Nancy said to Stef with a polite smile. “Can we borrow Steve for a moment, please?”

Stef looked back at Steve, who decided he’d better get this over with. “Thanks,” he said to Stef, “I’ll be back in a minute.” Then he joined his partners in the hallway, shutting the door to Stef’s apartment. “How did you find me?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jonathan said, a little too quickly. “I just had to come tell you that I’m sorry. You were right.”

“I was– I was _right_?” Steve asked, looking between Nancy and Jonathan. He really hadn’t expected them to admit it.

“I mean,” Jonathan continued, kind of looking more at Steve’s chest than his face, “I didn’t like you giving me orders and telling us the way it was going to be, because that’s not cool either. B-but I get now why you were so worried, because I went there and it’s…” Jonathan’s eyes went wide and his shook his head. 

Concerned about the speed at which words were tumbling out of Jonathan’s mouth, Steve turned to Nancy and asked her, “Is he _high_ right now?”

“No!” Nancy insisted, before looking over at Jonathan. “You’re not, right? They didn’t give you anything to take, did they?”

Jonathan shook his head again, pressing his hands together. “No, I’m just a little…” He closed his eyes and took a deeper breath. “Overloaded, I think. The doctor was _really_ excited to find me. Really excited. And I was trying to read him too closely, I think? I’m still…” He held out his hands, and they shook pretty drastically. 

Steve reached out, taking Jonathan’s hands in his, holding them steady. Trying to be as calm as he could in case Jonathan was reading his emotions too, Steve asked him, “How did you find me? Did you talk to Robin?”

“ _I_ found you,” Jonathan insisted. “You’re in my head, Steve. All the time. You and Nancy, both. I just had to…” He closed his eyes and shrugged. “Follow that feeling until we were here.”

“We had to go around the block a couple of times before we found the right building,” Nancy added. “But yeah. He knew where you were.”

“What feeling was it?” Steve asked. “That you followed? Is it one in particular, or–”

“Love,” Jonathan said. “Just … love. I love you.”

Overwhelmed by the straightforward way Jonathan said it, without any sort of hesitation, Steve couldn’t help himself. He caught Jonathan’s face in his hands and kissed the hell out of him. Jonathan’s arms curled Steve’s waist, holding him close as Jonathan kissed him back. 

Lost in the kiss, Steve didn’t stop until Nancy said, “Guys?” and shook Steve’s shoulder. As he stepped back from Jonathan, Steve realized that Stef’s door was open and she was staring at him. 

“Shit,” he said, turning toward Stef and wincing. “I don’t suppose you’ll let me get away with, ‘It’s not what it looks like,’ huh?”

“I wondered if you wanted your stuff,” she said, gesturing back into her apartment and the papers he had strewn all over her table. “A fight with your _roommate_?” She gave a little laugh, and Steve started to think that maybe he wasn’t in as deep shit as he thought at first. He shared a quick look with Jonathan and Nancy, who both looked as mortified as he felt.

“Yeah,” Steve said, slipping past her and gathering up his things. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

Stef shook her head, and Steve all but collapsed with relief. 

“Oh, my god, thank you,” he said, pulling her into a hug. “Screw those guys,” he gestured toward Nancy and Jonathan at the door. “You’re my new best friend.”

Stef giggled. “Hi, Jonathan. And…” She looked and Nancy, then up at Steve questioningly. 

“That’s Nancy,” he told her, letting Stef go and getting back to collecting his things. “Our girlfriend.” At Stef’s questioning look, Steve told her, “It’s a whole big thing. Don’t worry about it.” He shrugged on his coat and asked Stef, “I’ll see you in class tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she replied, catching Steve with a hand on his arm. “Steve?”

He paused next to her. “Yeah?”

“You’ve got to be really careful, okay?” she said, letting go of Steve’s arm. Leaning closer, she said, “My high school choir teacher? The school board found out he wasn’t just a nice old bachelor. He had a partner, and someone saw them together. They fired him, Steve. Parents didn’t want him around their kids. And now, with everything else going on? Just… just be careful, okay? I think you’ll make a great teacher, but you’ve got to make sure someone will be willing to hire you.”

Sobered by the points she brought up, Steve nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Thanks.” He sighed. “Bye, Stef.”

“Bye, Steve. See you tomorrow.”

After Stef closed her door, and they were almost to the stairs, Steve sighed out, “Jesus. I mean, I knew it would be bad. I knew we had good reasons not to tell people, but…” He shook his head. “We’ve got to be crazy-careful.”

As they left the building, Nancy put herself between Steve and Jonathan. She took Steve’s hand and said, “How’s this?”

“Good,” he told her, noticing Jonathan thinking hard about something. “What’s wrong?”

Jonathan looked up. “We have to get more information about that doctor,” he told them. “I can’t go back there, so we have to find another way.”

Steve thought about going home, then he thought about the fact that he still needed to call Robin back to tell her everything was good. “Wait, what if we ask Robin? Isn’t it her job to know about shit like this?”

Nancy looked up at Steve. “Oh, my god. It is.”

Sighing, Steve told them, “I’m sorry I was so angry last night. I sounded…" He shook his head, not wanting to admit that he realized later how much he’d sounded like his dad, throwing around orders like that. "Well, anyway, I was just really worried, guys, and it felt like … like my feelings weren’t as important as this story you’re chasing down.”

“Your feelings _are_ important,” Jonathan insisted. “Right, Nancy?”

“Yes, and I’m sorry,” she said, hugging Steve’s arm as they walked and turning her big, blue eyes up at him. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you, too,” he told her, squeezing her hand. “Let’s go home.”

~*~

“Let me get this straight,” Robin said on Saturday night, laying on Steve and Jonathan’s couch upside down, her head hanging over the edge. “You want my help breaking into an office at the hospital? You guys know I’m just in training to be an _analyst_ , right? Not a field agent.”

“Come on,” Nancy said from her folding chair at the kitchen table. “You know you love breaking into places.”

“And breaking back out of them,” Robin replied with a grin. She turned over and grabbed another fry from the bag on the floor. Looking over at Jonathan, she asked, “And you’re _sure_ they’re going after people with powers?”

“I picked the right card three times in a row,” Jonathan told her. “And when I didn’t show up at my appointment on Thursday, they called like five times, supposedly to check up on me. They’re acting desperate.”

“Desperate is dangerous,” Nancy insisted. “We have to move, and soon.”

“Well, weekends are usually a good time to get into places,” Robin said. “Of course, fewer people means less of a crowd to hide in.” Shrugging, she said, “I think we might just need a good cover story. Some reason why we’re there.”

Recognizing that grin on Robin’s face, Nancy asked, “You’ve got something, don’t you?”

Dismounting from the couch and landing on her feet, Robin said, “C’mon. My plan will work a lot better at ten in the evening than at two in the morning. Oh, and bring your camera, shutterbug.”

Steve stood up without question, ready to follow Robin, and Nancy figured she could ask her questions in the car. Jonathan gave Robin an injured look (Nancy guessed at Robin's nickname for him), but he slipped the strap of his camera over the back of his neck and followed.

They ended up not needing to use the drunk-double-date ruse Robin detailed for them, at least not on their way to the office. Nancy kept her eye out for security cameras, but when she saw one, Robin was already on it, climbing on Steve’s back to get herself up under the camera and spraying it with shaving cream from a little can she had stashed in her purse.

Nancy told Jonathan, “I wish we would have known Robin in high school. She would have been good against the demogorgon.”

Jonathan gave a little laugh and nodded. Then he pointed to one of the office doors. “That’s the doctor’s name. Lahey. This is his office.”

Nancy had this covered. She pulled a couple of pre-bent pins from her pocket and stuck them into the lock on the door handle. In her ear, Robin said, “Don’t open the door yet. Let me check for an alarm.”

Nancy nodded, popping the lock, but not opening the door. Robin stuck a piece of gum in her mouth and started chewing it before hopping up on Steve’s back again. She looked across the top of the door and down both sides, eventually hopping down from Steve’s back. After another few seconds looking, she said, “Ah ha!”

Then Robin took the foil gum wrapper out of her pocket, folded it, and stuck it through the crack of the door. She applied the gum to keep the foil in place, and carefully opened the door.

“Let’s make this as fast as we can,” Robin said.

With a nod, Nancy went into the room. Her first target was the large filing cabinet along the wall. She pulled at it, but it was locked. “Damn. I don’t know how to pick this one.”

“Won’t need to,” Robin told her, jangling a set of keys she’d plucked from the top desk drawer. A minute later, all of the filing cabinets were unlocked, and each of them was pawing through the folders. 

“What if he marked the folders as something else?” Steve asked. “Is he really going to label these, like, ‘victims of my evil plot’?”

“How about, ‘Research subjects, 1978-1979?’” Nancy asked, pulling the folder from its place in the cabinet. Flipping through it, she found files on seven different people, all of them college aged, by the details listed.”

Taking one of the files, Robin read through it. “This one says she was institutionalized at Research Site B for about a year.”

Jonathan took one of the other folders from the cabinet. “These are more recent. It says they kept this guy for a week.”

“This one they kept for two,” Nancy said as she skimmed. “It says they had trouble acquiring the necessary sample.”

“What sort of sample?” Steve asked, frowning with disgust.

“I can’t tell,” Nancy replied, closing that folder and taking one of the files from Jonathan’s. “This one says she’s still institutionalized. It’s not Katie, but…”

“Let’s get pictures of all of these files, Robin said, spreading out the files on the ground. Jonathan started shooting. 

As she looked over the files as Jonathan finished with them, Nancy noticed something. “It’s always the girls they’re keeping longer. Usually close to a year, if not longer. The guys they’re not keeping nearly that long.”

“Maybe the girls are stronger, like El,” Jonathan guessed, taking a few more photographs. 

“Nine was pretty strong,” Steve pointed out, sitting on the edge of the desk and pushing his hand back through his hair. Nancy leaned close to him, giving him a hug he looked like he needed.

“It has to be something to do with the samples they’re taking,” Robin said. “Maybe we can track down one of these guys. Ask him what they did to him.”

“One can only hope,” Nancy replied, helping Robin package the subject files back up the way they found them. “We should get out of here.”

“Don’t forget to lock everything up again,” Steve said, handing the keys to Robin.

She took them and told Steve, “Check if the coast is clear.”

Steve went to the door and looked out for a moment before telling them, “We’re good.”

Robin dropped the keys back in the drawer, then followed Nancy and the others out. They got two steps before Nancy said, “Oh, wait!” She went back and pulled Robin’s gum and wrapper from the door. “Let’s go!”

They’d almost made it back to the main part of the hospital when Robin looked around the corner and held up her hand. “Security guard,” she hissed. “We’re all drunk and my foot is broken, okay?”

Nancy linked her arm with Jonathan’s setting her head on his shoulder and hanging off him. Robin got Steve to bend down so she could put her arm over his shoulders, and she started hopping on one foot. “No, guys, guys!” she called out, slurring her words. “We’re going the wrong– the wrong way! Iss thish way!”

“No isss not!” Nancy replied as the four of them rounded the corner. Jonathan tensed up a little, then pulled on Nancy so they weaved, almost running into Steve. 

“Hey, man!” Steve called out toward the security officer. “Man, man! Where’re all the doctors, man?”

The officer rolled his eyes and pointed down a long hallway. “That way. Follow the signs that say Emergency Department.”

“Thank you!” Robin cried.

“I still think we’re going the wrong way,” Nancy insisted. 

They kept up the act until they were close to the main entrance. “Let’s get out of here,” Jonathan said, and he looked really uncomfortable. 

As they walked away from the hospital and back toward the car, Nancy softly asked him, “Are you okay?”

“No,” he replied.

Nancy pulled him away from the road and stopped, getting a good look at his face in the light from the street lamp. He looked really pale. “What’s wrong?”

A few yards ahead, Steve stopped too, holding Robin back by the hand.

Jonathan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I meant to just let my shields down a little bit. So I could tell whether or not that guard was buying it. Except I fucked up.”

“How?” Nancy asked, reaching forward to touch his arm, and jumping when he snatched his arm away like she’d burned him. “Jonathan?”

“Sorry,” he said, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I let the shield all the way down. In a _hospital_.”

It took Nancy a moment to realize why a hospital would be so bad. And then she gasped. “Oh, no! All those people in pain?”

Jonathan nodded. 

“Shit. Let’s get you out of here,” Nancy said. “Can you make it to the car?”

He shook his head again. 

Looking up to Steve, she called to him, “Bring the car around!”

“On it,” he called back, then he and Robin were jogging down the sidewalk away from them. 

Carefully not touching Jonathan, Nancy tried to make her voice as calm as possible. “Let’s just breathe and you close your eyes, and use the word El gave you, okay?”

Jonathan squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “Okay,” he said, taking a long breath in, and then letting it go. He did this a few more times before shaking his head. “I can still feel them.”

Nancy thought very hard about being calm. “Can you focus on me?”

Nothing was wrong. Everything was fine. Jonathan was strong. He could handle this. There was nothing to be worried about. 

“That’s helping,” Jonathan said, reaching forward and taking Nancy’s hand. 

She did the best she could to focus on being calm. She imagined herself to be a branch in a river, just letting everything slide by without affecting her.

The car pulled up to the sidewalk and Robin jumped out, opening the back door and helping Nancy get Jonathan into the car. As they drove, Nancy did her best to focus for Jonathan. Partway through the drive, he went from sitting with his head between his knees to sprawling out in the back seat. He put his head in Nancy’s lap, and she petted his head, thinking _love_ at him. 

Jonathan smiled. 

“You through the worst of it?” she asked.

He nodded and replied, “The distance from the hospital helps.”

“Do you want to drive home and back tomorrow?” She offered. “Spend a little time in the bath?”

Jonathan shook his head. “I have too much to do. There’s one week left, and then finals.”

“Don’t remind me,” she groaned. 

From the front seat, Steve said, “Don’t remind me either.” Turning to Robin, he told her, “You’re lucky you’re not still in school.”

“Hey, I’m kind of doing school,” Robin announced. “My boss gives me tests on study material.”

“Not the same,” Steve insisted.

As Robin argued her case with Steve, Nancy focused on Jonathan, trying and failing not to be worried for him.

~*~

The bathtub in the apartment was fairly shallow, but Jonathan filled it up anyway. He wouldn’t be able to float, but he hoped the warm water would help him focus on rebuilding his shield. 

“Do you want us to sit with you?” Nancy asked him as he got undressed. 

The worry and fatigue coming off Nancy made Jonathan a little sick, so he shook his head. But then he thought about being alone in the dark and shivered. Nancy would help relieve that fear a bit, but Jonathan realized that Steve would help even more. 

Steve never felt as anxious as Nancy, and he wasn’t as tired yet. Jonathan hated comparing the two of them, and he hated the fact that he was about to hurt Nancy’s feelings. The fact remained that he wouldn’t be of much use to either of them if he couldn’t get his shield up.

“Could you send Steve in?”

Jonathan was right. Nancy’s feelings were hurt. Still, she nodded and told him, “Of course.”

He lowered his body into the tub carefully, not really trusting his brain’s coordination when it hurt this much. Leaning back and closing his eyes, Jonathan let himself drift. He heard Steve come into the room and close the door behind him. He sat down next to the tub and said, “Hey, Jonathan. What do you need me to do?”

“Turn off the lights,” Jonathan told him. “Then come and hold my hand.”

“You’re in luck,” Steve said, shifting away. “Because I know how to do both those things.” After the click of the light switch and a little fumbling around, Steve’s fingers trailed down Jonathan’s arm and found his hand, resting on the side of the tub. “How’s that?”

It wasn’t the perfect sense deprivation of El’s tub, especially holding Steve’s hand, but it was pretty good. Jonathan squeezed Steve’s hand and thought about re-making his shield. 

Thinking the word he and El had programmed into his head, “buried,” got Jonathan part of the way there. The background noise of all the minds around Jonathan started to fall away. Still, he needed more. 

“Talk to me,” Jonathan said to Steve. “Tell me some happy memories.”

“Happy memories. Okay,” Steve said, taking a moment. “What about the night I graduated? Well, that was probably a lot more happy for me than it was for you. Sorry.”

“No, that’s good,” Jonathan told him, remembering the joy on Steve’s face when he told them he was leaving his parents’ house and moving in with Jonathan. Jonathan pushed that memory under the shield, stabilizing it. "What about another?"

Steve hummed thoughtfully for a moment. "What about that first mixed tape you made me?" Steve said, rubbing his thumb along Jonathan's. "I came over and we just listened to it and made out for like, an hour." Steve laughed a little bit. "Every time I listened to it after that, I got hard."

Jonathan snorted with laughter. "I remember that night," he said, building up his shield again.

"Oh, or what about when we took Nancy to the Marion county fair? No one knew us there. We didn’t have to worry so much about being seen."

"We convinced the Ferris Wheel guy to let us all sit in the same seat," Jonathan remembered, pushing that memory where he needed it.

Steve murmured, "You kept putting your fingers in my hair. It felt so nice. I was holding Nancy's hand and you were petting me, and I never wanted that ride to end."

“What about the first time Nancy came over here?” Jonathan suggested. 

“That was a good night,” Steve agreed. “It felt like we were finally whole again. Here in our own place, no parents or siblings to worry about, we could just be ourselves. All together.”

Jonathan hummed, doing the work of getting the shield right, so it wouldn’t come down again. His pain was fading. He could still feel Steve, because their hands were linked. Jonathan couldn’t quite feel Nancy’s emotions anymore, but her presence in the other room was a familiar tune in the back of his head. 

“Remember when we were trying to get Hop up and out of the house after he got home?” Steve asked. “We tried to play flag football in the park. Except Hop is so big, we made him play on his own team.”

Jonathan laughed. “You couldn't run much, so you played quarterback.”

“You caught that pass I threw you,” Steve reminded him. “Won us the game with that touchdown.”

“Hop was smiling so big, even though he lost,” Jonathan said, running his thumb over Steve’s. “We felt like a family that day.”

Such a pure spike of love came through Jonathan’s connection with Steve that he felt like he might burst from it. Then he realized he could use that feeling. He shoved it at the shield, and it was like a lock clicking into place. Set. 

“Oh. I got it,” Jonathan told Steve. "I set the shield."

“Yeah?”

Jonathan squeezed Steve’s hand once more. “Yeah. Turn on the light for me?”

“Sure,” Steve said, letting go of Jonathan’s hand. Something clattered over near the counter, but then the light turned on. 

By the time Jonathan was done blinking and getting used to the change, Steve had a towel ready to wrap around him and was offering him a hand out of the tub. 

“You’re too good to me,” Jonathan insisted, standing up and letting Steve dry him off.

Steve cupped Jonathan’s face and brushed his thumb back against the stubble on Jonathan’s cheek with an affectionate smile. “Impossible.”

Jonathan smiled back, and found himself yawning. 

“Okay, to bed with you,” Steve insisted. “To bed with everyone. It’s almost two in the morning.”

Jonathan was glad to find that he still had Nancy in his head. The emotions coming from her were muted, but easy to follow to where she was lying in bed. Jonathan didn’t bother getting dressed. He dropped his towel on the floor and crawled into bed, wrapping himself around her. 

Steve turned off the hallway light, stripped down to his underwear, and got in bed with them. 

“Are you feeling better?” Nancy whispered. 

“Much,” Jonathan assured her. This close he could feel how worried she was, and _there_ he pinpointed a little bit of that hurt feeling left. And a little bit of jealousy. He told her, “I think I should work on it again tomorrow. Will you help me?”

A little flare of hope blossomed in her. “How?”

“Just hold his hand,” Steve mumbled, reaching over Jonathan to rub Nancy’s arm. “And tell him good memories.”

“I could do that.”

Jonathan meant to respond to her, but he dropped off to sleep before he managed to do it.

~*~

In the morning, Steve made everyone eggs, and then they walked over to the UIC campus. As Jonathan opened the outer door of the Art building, Robin asked him, “They seriously gave you keys to the building?”

Jonathan shrugged. “I like to work early sometimes. When I can’t sleep. I guess my boss figured I was dependable.”

“And that you wouldn’t steal supplies,” Nancy said, chewing on one of her fingernails, before quickly putting her hands down at her sides. 

“I’ll buy a new pack of photo paper from the bookstore tomorrow and replace it,” Jonathan assured her. “It’s fine.”

Steve kept his arm over Robin’s shoulders as they walked through the empty building. “This building is kind of creepy on the weekend.”

“You think ghosts exist?” Robin asked him. 

Steve made a humming noise before deciding, “Probably. But it’s probably got some weird interdimensional explanation.”

“Like the explanation for monsters from the Upside Down?”

“Exactly.”

“The darkroom is through here,” Jonathan told them, unlocking a door that said, “Lab.”

“How long do you think it will take to process all the photos you took last night?” Nancy asked as they followed Jonathan through the door. 

“A couple hours, I think,” Jonathan told them. 

Steve wasn’t looking forward to being bored for that long, but they all piled into the darkroom anyway. Then he started watching Jonathan work. His movements were swift and sure, moving around the small, dark space knowing exactly where everything was. It was kind of sexy, honestly.

“Don’t,” Jonathan said to him. Damn. He must have picked up on that emotion.

“Sorry,” Steve said, but he wasn’t sorry. Not at all. Why should he be? 

Jonathan gave a tut and said, “You’ll distract me.”

“What’s going on?” Robin asked. “I can barely see anything.”

“They’re just doing that thing where half the conversation is nonverbal,” Nancy told her, helping as Jonathan handed her various things to hold while he worked. Steve thought Nancy sounded a little annoyed with them. Or with Steve in particular?

Why? 

Because these pictures were important and Jonathan shouldn’t be distracted from them? Or because he and Jonathan were that close? She'd been jealous the night before, when Jonathan wanted Steve to help him with his shield instead of her. 

Steve hated the thought of Nancy unhappy with him for any sort of reason. He hated the thought of Nancy unhappy at all. It made him want to do his best to fix it. How was he supposed to fix it? Give Nancy more attention? Reassure her that as close as he and Jonathan were, that she'd always be their girl? 

Steve went over to Nancy, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her hair. She leaned back against him and maybe it felt like a little bit of forgiveness. He kind of wished he could peek in on her emotions like Jonathan could, so maybe he could get an idea of whether he was doing the right thing or not. But then he thought about the headaches Jonathan had and what they'd almost driven him to do. So, yeah. Steve would just have to get by the old fashioned way. Listening. Paying attention.

When it was Nancy, he could do those things. 

A few minutes later, Jonathan got them organized into a production line, turning out picture after picture. By the time they were done, it was almost time for Steve to go to work. "What should we do with all these pictures?" he asked Robin as Jonathan put them all into a large envelope. "Can you do something with them?"

"I'll make some notes before I head back to Hawkins," Robin told them, "see what I can figure out on my end. But honestly, I think you should keep them safe until you can bring them to El. If some of these people are still alive and we can talk to them, that's going to be the best way to get the information we need."

"In the meantime, I'll look through the student directories," Nancy told the others. "If any of them are Northwestern students, I should be able to figure out hometowns, anyway. Hometowns will lead me to families we can talk to, as well."

Out of the blue, Jonathan said, "I'm starving." That was a good sign, wasn't it? Steve had noticed him not eating as much when he was in pain. 

"I could eat," Robin said, and that's when Nancy grinned over at Steve.

"What?" Steve asked her.

"How do you feel about pizza, Robin?" Nancy asked, still smiling at Steve.

Steve laughed and shook his head. "Yeah, okay. Everyone come harass me at work. Why not?"

Robin smiled brightly and told Nancy, "I _love_ pizza!"


	11. Goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas break starts off with a bang.

Nancy did her best to run down the names she'd gotten from the records in the hospital, but between studying for finals and putting together the Christmas edition of the Daily Northwestern, she ran out of hours in the day. 

Suddenly, it was the last night before her last final and she'd only gotten as far as hometowns for the first half of the list. She burrowed into bed with Jonathan and told him, "I don't think I'm going to be able to find any more of them before I have to go home tomorrow."

"I wish you were coming back to Springfield with us," Jonathan told her with a kiss. He brushed his hand through her hair and kissed her again. "A week is too long not to see you."

"I know," Nancy sighed. "But my parents insisted. My grandmother wants us all to go to church for Christmas."

Jonathan kissed her a few more times. "Your bus is right after your last final?"

"Yeah," she told him, getting her hand under his shirt and running her hand up his chest. "Steve's gonna pick me up and bring me to the bus station downtown."

Jonathan moved his lips to Nancy's neck. "I wish I could see you off, too," he said, his lips making goosebumps rise up on her skin. "But you're leaving during my Lit final."

"We'll have to say goodbye in the morning," Nancy told him, pulling on Jonathan's shirt so he would take it off. "When is Steve supposed to be home?"

"He said it might be late," Jonathan told her, sitting up and pulling his shirt off. "His group has to finish their project by tomorrow morning."

Nancy took her own shirt off, saying, "I guess we'll have to carry on without him."

"I'll make it up to him," Jonathan insisted, his lips smiling against hers as they kissed again. His fingers traced down her back, and dipped under the waistband of her panties. The suggestion made her shiver and grasp at Jonathan, pulling him closer.

Nancy pushed at his boxers and let him kick them off as she took her own underwear off. Pressed against Jonathan's skin, from shoulder to toe, Nancy felt loved and safe. She kissed him, licking at his lips and brushing her hand over his cheek and down to his neck, making him take a sharp breath.

Jonathan scooted up the bed, lifting up on one elbow and kissing her harder, encouraging Nancy onto her back. He ran his hand up her side, cupping her breast and brushing his thumb lightly against her nipple. Nancy groaned and Jonathan shivered in her arms. He did it again, and his cock jumped against her thigh.

"Holy shit," he whispered, trailing his fingers down Nancy's belly.

"What?" she asked, her breath hitching when he reached between her legs. 

Fingers rubbing in a light circle, Jonathan smiled against Nancy's lips. "Just feels good," he murmured, his fingers pressing just hard enough to make Nancy's whole body tingle. Jonathan shuddered and sighed. "Feels so good."

"Yeah, it does," she agreed, gasping when his fingers dipped farther down, coming back to her clit wet and slippery. "Fuck, Jonathan!"

When he touched her again, he groaned, putting his head down on her shoulder. "Oh, shit!"

As soon as Nancy wondered to herself what was going on with him, Jonathan shook his head. "No, it's okay," he told her, kissing Nancy's shoulder. "I was just too…" He touched her again, his breath hitching as Nancy sighed. Then he finished his thought, saying, "Too connected. I've gotta pull back, or I'm not gonna make it."

"Too connected to me?" Nancy asked in a whisper, brushing her hand against his cheek. "Sharing my feelings?"

Jonathan nodded. 

"Don't," she insisted, suddenly overcome with longing for him, even though he was right there. "Don't pull back."

"Nancy," he sighed, his fingers hovering over her clit, shaking and frustratingly not quite close enough. "It feels too good. I can't…"

"Then let me," she told him, pushing on Jonathan's shoulders until he laid back on the bed. "And don't you dare pull back."

He shivered under her as Nancy climbed onto him, straddling his hips and kissing him deep and slow. She used her hand to grasp his cock and line him up, taking him into her body so slowly her muscles trembled with the effort. Once Nancy had Jonathan seated all the way in her, she watched his face as she lifted up and then sank back down onto him. 

Jonathan closed his eyes and arched his back, gasping, his fingers digging into her thighs. God, he was so beautiful. She loved him so much. 

"I, ah!" Jonathan said as Nancy moved her hips slowly, riding just on the edge of _almost_ great. "I love … love you, too."

Curious, Nancy asked him, "How does it feel?"

With a low groan in his throat, Jonathan pulled Nancy closer and kissed her. He licked at her lips and sucked on her tongue and drove his hips upward each time she let her hips fall. She could tell he wanted her to move faster, he wanted to come, he wanted it to be over. But Nancy wanted it to last. She wasn't going to see him for so long. She wanted to hold onto Jonathan and keep him with her, just like this, for as long as possible.

"Please, Nancy," Jonathan murmured, using both hands to tuck her hair back behind her ears. " _Please_?"

She had tried, but she couldn't deny him any longer. Not when he asked like that. Not when she wanted to give him everything he asked for and then some. 

Nancy kissed Jonathan and sped up, just a little bit, just enough to prevent the sharp-hot-good feeling from fading between each stroke. Jonathan followed her pace, sighing against her lips. And then Nancy's orgasm snuck up on her. Without any warning, she was coming, crying out and clenching around Jonathan and moving faster just to keep the feeling from fading, chasing it down, making it last.

Jonathan gasped, letting the breath out in a low, almost pained whine as he came too, pushing at Nancy's thighs. He took great, gulping breaths and pulled out of Nancy as soon as she let him. She tried to draw back, to give him some space, but Jonathan held her close. He shivered, so Nancy pet his hair and kissed his cheeks. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, rubbing her hand over his chest.

“I’m good,” Jonathan assured her, catching her hand with his and holding it over his heart. He turned toward her and smiled. “That was just really intense.”

Nancy chuckled and kissed him. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“Me too.” He yawned, shifting around and reaching for more of the blankets. 

Nancy let Jonathan spoon her, pulling the blankets close against the winter chill and dropping off to sleep.

~*~

Jonathan woke up coming, his cock pumping between the mattress and his belly. “What the fuck?” he mumbled sleepily, looking up at his surroundings. The window was still dark, but the clock said it was just after seven in the morning. Looking the other way, Jonathan saw Steve on top of Nancy, kissing her neck as she sighed. 

"What's that, baby?" Steve asked, looking over at Jonathan with a sleepy, satisfied smile that was just visible in the light coming from the hallway.

Nancy looked over too, smiling and reaching for Jonathan. "You finally woke up."

"Need me to take care of you?" Steve asked, leaning over and kissing Jonathan.

"No," Jonathan said, shifting out of the wet spot and closer to their side of the bed. "I already…" He laughed a little, realizing he must have come in his sleep because one, or both, of them had just come and he’d unconsciously felt it. "I'm good." He kissed Nancy and ran his hand up and down Steve's back. "Besides, I have a final in less than an hour. I've got to move."

He gave Steve one more kiss and then got out of bed. The air outside the bedcovers was painfully cold, but he didn't bother to get dressed. He grabbed whatever clean clothes he could find and went to take a shower. Once he was warmed up, washed off, and dressed, he grabbed some toast for breakfast and gave Nancy a nice goodbye hug. "Call us tonight, okay?" Jonathan told her.

Nancy nodded. "We made it a whole year apart. I think we can handle a week."

"Don't jinx it," Jonathan told her, pressing his forehead to hers and breathing her in for a moment. "Okay, I gotta go. Love you, Nancy."

"Love you, too," she said, looking small and cute all wrapped up in blankets. He smiled and kissed her again.

"Steve!" he called toward the bathroom. "I'm leaving!"

The door opened and Steve stuck his head out. His face was half-shaved and his hair was wet, but somehow still standing up. "Hey, Jonathan! Gimme a kiss!"

"You'll get shaving cream all over me," Jonathan insisted with a laugh. "I'll kiss you a bunch later. I promise!"

"You'd better!"

And then Jonathan was off. His shield was holding well, so the buzzing emotions of all the people around him were just the tiniest white noise in the back of his head. He had two finals that day, but after them he was done for almost a month. Classes didn’t start again until mid-January.

The first final of the day, the one for his general requirement math class, went fine. He hadn’t been able to study enough to ace it, but he figured he’d easily passed at least. He grabbed lunch at the student union, got a little last-minute studying in, and then went to his Lit final. 

Halfway through the test, he felt Nancy leave. Or maybe he just imagined not being able to feel her anymore. He touched back on Steve for just a second, making sure he was okay, and then focused again on writing his final exam.

When it was over, Jonathan felt drained, but pleased. He walked home through the snowy campus at a nice leisurely pace, feeling good. Near the edge of campus, he found the sunlight hitting a row of icicles _just right_. He had to stop and take a picture. Then another one. After five, he stopped himself. He wasn't going to be working during the Christmas break, so he should probably conserve his film, and the money he would need to spend on it, as much as possible. 

So instead of taking even more pictures, Jonathan kept walking toward home. He had to pass by Steve's work on the way, so he ducked in. The restaurant was almost deserted, but it wasn't surprising given the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon and nearing the end of finals week. "Come keep me company on my break," Steve told him, pouring Jonathan a Coke and passing it over before pouring his own and carrying it and a plate with some sort of sandwich on it to one of the tables near the back.

"What time d'you think we should leave tomorrow?" Steve asked him, taking a bite of his sandwich before pushing the plate over to Jonathan, offering it to him.

Jonathan shrugged and picked up the sandwich, confused by what he was looking at. "What the hell is in this?"

"Everything," Steve said, grinning. "All the pizza toppings. Jake makes them for me sometimes. I found out after, like, the third one that he’d been making them for me as a prank. He does it to all the new hires. I guess I’m the first one who’s actually liked it.”

Jonathan snorted. “I’m not surprised. You’ll eat anything.”

“I’m not picky,” Steve said with a grin. “I like to put all sorts of things in my mouth.”

Jonathan laughed. He couldn’t help it. Steve was being goofy, and Jonathan just felt so good. He couldn’t wait until they got to go back to Springfield in the morning. “I’m gonna go home and pack,” he told Steve, “before your mouth gets you in trouble.”

Steve winked and took another bite of his sandwich, grinning as he chewed. Jonathan finished his Coke, playfully flipped Steve the bird, and left. 

He was feeling so good he didn’t notice until after he stepped into the apartment that he could feel several people were inside it. There should have been no one. 

Suddenly sickeningly, chillingly terrified, Jonathan backed out and got halfway down the first flight of stairs before a large man wearing dark glasses blocked the way. “Just hold on a minute, Jonathan,” he said, taking a step up the stairs. “We’d like to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I’m not really a talkative guy,” Jonathan said, taking a step back up the stairs. He wondered if he could make it to the fire escape at the end of the hallway if he got back up the stairs fast enough. He didn’t let his shield drop, but he felt around enough to know that it wasn’t going to work. There were too many people between him and any of the exits. He was trapped. 

“Jonathan,” said a familiar voice at the top of the stairs. He turned around, and it was Dr. Lahey from the hospital. The same Dr. Lahey whose files he and his friends had broken into and taken pictures of. “We’ve been worried about you.”

“You know, I’ve been doing much better,” Jonathan told him. “No need to worry. Or break into my house. Really, that wasn’t necessary.”

Lahey felt a little amused, but mostly tense. Anxious, like he was afraid of someone. Not Jonathan, but maybe someone he was working for? “I think you know you’re going to have to come with us.”

“Or what?” Jonathan asked, putting his back against the stairwell wall, so it wouldn’t be turned toward Lahey or his goon. “You’ll hurt me?”

“Oh, we wouldn’t hurt you, Mr. Byers,” Lahey insisted. “You’re far too valuable to us.” He took a step down the stairs, boxing Jonathan in, far more scared of something else than he was of Jonathan possibly fighting back. “There are others who aren’t so valuable to us, but we think they might be to you.”

“Don’t,” Jonathan told him, feeling each awful, petty step Lahey took toward him. 

“Nancy Wheeler,” Lahey said, and Jonathan tried not to let his fear for her show on his face. “She’s on a Greyhound Bus that just made a stop in Gary, Indiana. An hour from now, it’s stopping in South Bend. It’s a rough part of the state. Who knows what might happen before she makes it to Fort Wayne where her lovely mother will be waiting for her?”

Shaking his head in horror, Jonathan said, “You can’t hurt her.”

“There’s the other one,” said the man at the bottom of the stairs. “The Harrington boy. Your best friend, according to the young miss across the hall. He works just down the street, doesn’t he? At Nero’s? It’s a shame, but businesses around here sometimes do get robbed. At gunpoint. If I were you, I’d hope Harrington wasn’t gonna be at work when that happens.”

Jonathan stuck out his jaw, nodding and trying to blink back the tears that threatened to fall. “If I go with you, nothing happens to them.”

“They’ll be fine,” Lahey assured Jonathan. The doctor’s words were calm, but he still felt tense. Desperate. “Now, why don’t you come upstairs and pack a bag? You might be with us for awhile.”

Jonathan clenched his shaking hands and made himself walk back up the stairs. There were two more people in the front room of his apartment, a man and a woman, both dressed for the cold Chicago weather. 

He walked past them and into the bedroom. It didn’t look like they’d touched anything, but maybe they’d just been circumspect about it. Jonathan pulled his duffel bag from the floor of the closet and started packing. He didn’t have that many clothes, so he only packed a few things, just in case something happened to his bag and he never got these things back.

The only thing he couldn’t bring himself to leave behind was Steve’s Hawkins Basketball sweatshirt. He and Nancy wore it far more often than Steve did, and it reminded him of both of them. 

Lahey’s people watched Jonathan pack, so he didn’t bother trying to hide a weapon in his things. There was a switchblade in the nightstand drawer, but Jonathan couldn’t figure out how to secret it away without getting caught. Never mind the nail bat under the bed.

He tried not to even think about the photographs hidden behind a false back in the hallway towel cupboard. Steve knew where they were. When he couldn’t find Jonathan he would know to bring it to El. She would find him. 

El and Will would come for him.

These people were so fucked, and they didn’t even know it yet. 

Jonathan left his camera, not wanting to risk it, then closed the duffel bag and hoisted it over his shoulder. “Let’s get this over with.”

Lahey and his men led Jonathan down the stairs and to a white passenger van parked half a block down the street. It had tinted windows, and two more people in it. Both felt grim determination when Jonathan read them. Plus a little bit of fear. Unlike Lahey, these two were specifically afraid of Jonathan.

One of the men took Jonathan’s bag and threw it into the back. Another showed Jonathan to a seat in the center of the middle row of seats. There, bolted to the floor, was a set of restraints. The men closed the cuffs around Jonathan’s ankles, then around his wrists. To top things off, they put a black bag over Jonathan’s head. 

The van door slid shut. The engine rumbled to life, and they started moving. Jonathan felt Steve, still pleased with himself, probably finishing up his break about now. 

Jonathan couldn’t panic, as much as the darkness made him feel like panic was inevitable. He needed to be calm. He needed to call for help.

Remembering how Will had told him it was possible for him to reach the Inbetween, Jonathan decided to try it. He closed his eyes, listened to the rumble of the tires over the bumpy, icy streets, and tried to follow that El-feeling in his head. If he could reach anyone, it would be her. 

He found her, eventually, but the effort of it made his head feel like it was splitting open. She was there, sitting in school, bored.

“El!” He called out to her. “El! I need help!”

She closed her eyes, and suddenly she was much closer, much easier for him to reach. “Jonathan?” She took his hand and flipped through his most recent memories, lightning-fast. 

“Don’t let them hurt Nancy,” Jonathan pleaded with her. “Don’t let them hurt Steve.”

“I won’t,” she insisted, tears falling as she pulled Jonathan into a tight hug. “I’ll find you.”

“I know you will.”

A bump in the road made Jonathan lose his concentration and he was knocked out of the Inbetween, his head pounding. His upper lip was wet and tasted like blood. A lot of blood. 

“Shit,” said one of the men in the van. “We’ve got a bleeder.”

“Means he’s strong,” said someone else. “Pull over. We’re going to have to sedate him early.”

The car rolled to a stop. Strong hands pinned Jonathan down, and even though he struggled against them, it was no use. He was chained to the floor. He’d used most of his strength contacting his sister. 

The sharp bite of a needle pricked Jonathan’s thigh, and then it burned as something was injected into him. At first he didn’t feel much, other than his kidnappers starting to let him go. Then slowly, everything started to feel fuzzy. His head got heavy and so did his eyelids. He thought he felt El trying to say something to him, but he couldn’t hear her. And he could barely feel Steve anymore, either.


	12. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Nancy realize something has happened to Jonathan.

Steve was just coming back to the kitchen after attending to his single table of the dinner service so far, when Jake handed him the phone. “It’s your brother. Says it’s an emergency.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve picked up the phone and said, “Dustin, if this is another–”

“It’s Will. Do you know where Jonathan is?” His tone was so serious that Steve’s heart started beating wildly. 

“I just saw him,” Steve said. “He left here, like twenty minutes ago, heading home. Can’t you reach him at the apartment?”

“He called El for help, and she seems really freaked out. Says she can’t reach him anymore.”

“He called El?” Steve asked. “You can't call him back?”

“Steve,” Will insisted. “Jonathan _didn’t use a phone_ to call her. Something is wrong!”

“Didn’t use a…” Oh, that's right. Steve's boyfriend had superpowers. Suddenly dizzy, Steve had to grab the counter to keep his balance. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. What do I do?”

“Go look for him!” Will cried. “And be careful. El says they’re bad men.”

“Fuck. Shit. Okay. I’m on my way.”

Steve hung up the phone. Turning to Jake, he said, “I gotta go. Tell Penny I’ll make it up to her.”

“Yeah, go, man,” Jake told him, earnestly waving him off. “We’ve got it covered.”

“Thanks!” Steve tore off his work apron and grabbed his coat, pulling it on as he dashed out the back door and down the alley toward home. 

Halfway there, he wondered if he was going to need some sort of weapon. El had said there were bad men involved, and he didn’t want this to turn into another Russian Base incident without some way of defending himself. He made a slight detour toward his car, unlocked it with shaking hands, and pulled the tire iron out from the back.

He barely remembered to lock his car again before running to the apartment building. He unlocked the front door of the building with shaking hands, and got the tire iron ready as he took the steps as quietly and cautiously as he could. Steve made it to the third floor and his apartment door without incident. 

He tried the apartment door, and it was unlocked. Heart beating in terrified rhythm, Steve slowly pushed the door open. He flipped on the lights in the main room, and looked around carefully before moving in. The living room and kitchen were empty. So was the hall closet, the bedroom, and the bathroom. No one was here. Not even Jonathan. 

On his second pass through the apartment, Steve closed the front door, and then noticed a piece of paper on the kitchen table. It was a handwritten note. 

_Steve—_

_I decided to leave for home early. See you after Christmas Break!_

_—Jonathan_

Despite the fact that the note was clearly _not_ in Jonathan’s handwriting, it was obviously written by someone who had only a cursory understanding of their relationship. First of all, no way would Jonathan take a bus or something to Springfield when he could just drive with Steve. And second of all, whoever wrote the note didn’t realize that he and Jonathan spent their holidays in the same place. 

Third of all, Jonathan would never leave the apartment for more than a day without his camera, which was sitting on the little table next to the couch. No. No way. Something had happened. 

Steve picked up the phone and called the Byers house. 

“Yeah?” It was Hop who answered, and he sounded bored. Not on the verge of panic. 

“Where are Will and El?” Steve asked, desperate to hear more about what El knew. 

“Steve?” Hop asked. 

“Yeah, it’s me. Where are they?”

More concern in his voice now, Hop replied, “Still at school. I was about to go pick them up.”

“Shit,” Steve swore, pacing around the living room. “Will must have called me from there. Someone grabbed Jonathan.”

“Grabbed?” Hop asked. “Like, took him?”

Steve had to force himself to take a breath, risking the chance that it might escape back out as a sob. “Yeah. This is all just so _wrong_. I don’t know what to do!”

“Who would take him?” Hopper asked, and Steve recognized that cop tone of his. “Not Owens’ guys…”

That’s when Steve remembered the Northwestern study and all the test subjects in the records, and the fact that at least one of them was still missing. “Oh, no. Oh, no. No. No! NO!”

“Steve, what?”

“I’m coming to you,” Steve insisted, his mind moving faster than he could consciously keep up with. “I have stuff El needs to see. Evidence. I think it’ll help her find him.”

It took Hopper a moment, but eventually he replied, “Okay. Drive safe.”

“Sure.”

Steve hung up the phone, and wished he’d had time to pack for the trip home earlier. He emptied out his backpack onto the futon in the living room. Then, he stuffed a change of clothes, his toothbrush, and the envelope of pictures from the hidden compartment in the towel cabinet all into it. 

Then, he grabbed up the phone and called Robin. No one answered at her house, but then he realized it was Thursday. She was “working” with her CIA handler until late. 

He dialed the next number he could think of. 

“Hello?”

“Mike!” Steve cried. “Has your mom already left to get Nancy?”

“No,” Mike said. “She was just about to leave.”

Thanking the universe for small mercies, Steve said as seriously as he could, “Listen. Shit is hitting the fan. Jonathan is in trouble. I need you to go with your mom and make sure Nancy is safe. Do you understand me?”

“Y-yeah,” Mike said. “Oh, my god! Yeah, I understand.”

“Have her call Will,” Steve insisted. “He knows more. Oh, and bring Robin in, if you can reach her. I gotta run. Watch your back, Wheeler.”

“You, too, Steve.”

Hanging up, Steve stopped only to grab the bat from under the bed, put on his backpack, and lock the apartment door behind him. 

He flew down the steps and out onto the street, running back to his car and getting in. He figured 290 heading west from the city was going to be too packed this time of day, so he took surface streets all the way over to 355. 

It was a long, slow trek and Steve hated it. He cried a little bit, glad the sun was setting and the other drivers couldn’t see him. What else was he supposed to do with this horrible, nauseating, anxious feeling?

By the time he got to I-55, traffic had thinned out and he gunned it down the highway. For most of the drive, he stayed a very respectable 10 over the speed limit. It was dark out and a little snowy, but Jonathan was gone!

He was gone!

Steve stepped on the gas. 

He made it past Bloomington, and back out onto the open freeway. 

Steve stepped on the gas again. He was doing 20 over and thinking he might be able to make Springfield within the next half hour, when he noticed the red and blue flashing lights behind him. 

“Shit.”

This was exactly what he didn’t need right now. 

Trying to hold it together and not start crying again or something stupid, Steve pulled over. He got out his license from his wallet and the registration from the glove box. Taking a deep breath to calm his frayed nerves, Steve rolled down the window. The bitter cold night air made him shiver. 

An officer came up to the window and shined his flashlight into the car at Steve. “Son, do you know how fast you were going?”

“No,” Steve lied, handing over his papers. 

The officer took them, shining his light in Steve’s eyes for a few more seconds. “I clocked you going about eighty-five. It’s dark and icy out. What were you thinking?”

“Look, it’s an emergency, okay? I’m sorry. Can I just get the ticket and go?” Steve huffed, anxious to get back on the road. 

“What sort of emergency?”

Steve pressed his lips together and looked out at the very unimpressed-looking officer. How was he supposed to explain that his secretly-psychic live-in boyfriend had been kidnapped and that Steve had information possibly vital to finding him?

“Look, it’s a personal emergency, okay? I will drive the speed limit. I will pay the ticket. Please, just let me go!”

“Son, have you been drinking?”

“No!” Steve cried, putting his forehead against the steering wheel in frustration. 

“Look at me, please?”

“What?” Steve cried, looking at the officer and blinking when he shone the flashlight right in Steve’s eyes. “Ow! What the fuck, man?”

“Your eyes are bloodshot.”

Fuck. “I’ve been crying, okay? Jesus Christ! I need to go!”

“You need to get out of the vehicle,” the officer’s tone left no room for argument.

“God damn it!” Steve cried. “Fine! Fine, I’m getting out of the car!”

Not wanting to get shot or something, Steve kept his hands as visible as he could and got out slowly. “I’m stone-cold sober,” he insisted. “I can prove it to you. Should I walk a straight line?”

“No,” the officer said, a deep frown underneath his bushy mustache. “Please turn and face the car.”

“Fuuuuck,” Steve groaned, but he did as he was asked. 

“Put your hands behind your back.”

Steve did so, but he asked, “You’re _arresting_ me? For speeding?”

“You are too agitated to be operating a motor vehicle right now,” the trooper insisted, closing handcuffs tightly around Steve’s wrists. “I am taking you in on suspicion of driving under the influence.”

“Under the influence of _what_?”

The officer pulled at Steve’s arms and directed him toward his cruiser. “A little something called cocaine. Very popular with kids your age these days. Especially the spoiled, rich ones.”

“Man, look at my car,” Steve told him, definitely starting to panic. “I’m not rich! I work my ass off and all my money goes to rent and tuition. I don’t have the cash to spend on drugs, even if I wanted to! Come on!”

“Watch your head.”

Steve was pretty much shoved into the back of the cruiser, and the door closing behind him felt to Steve like hearing Jonathan’s last lifeline being cut. 

The officer went over to Steve’s car and poked around in it, pulling his backpack out, and then his bat. The bat was still stained with monster blood, and probably looked more than a little suspicious. 

_Shit_. 

The officer didn’t pull anything else out of Steve’s car, but only because Steve didn’t have anything else in there. Parking anything other than a clean, empty car out on the Chicago streets overnight was just asking for trouble. 

The officer loaded his stuff into the trunk of the cruiser, and then took a seat, closing the door behind him. “Says here your car’s registered to an address in Springfield. That where you’re headed?”

“Yes,” Steve replied miserably. 

“Well, lucky for you, I’m based out of Springfield.” He picked up his radio and said into it, “Hey, dispatch? I need a look-up for priors. Coming in with an arrest.”

“This is dispatch,” the radio said back to him. “Go ahead with the name.”

The officer read off Steve’s name, and Steve felt like he was going to be sick.

“We got it, Jim. See you in a bit.”

“Roger that.”

“Hey,” Steve said as the officer pulled out onto the freeway. “Your name is Jim?”

“That’s Officer Wilson to you, son.”

Clearing his throat, Steve said, “Because my dad’s name is Jim, too. Well, he’s my step-dad. Sort of. Whatever. When do you think I can call him? Mr. Officer Wilson, sir?”

“After we get you processed, Mr. Harrington,” he replied. “After that.”

_Shit_.

~*~

When Nancy got off the bus in Fort Wayne and collected her suitcase, it was starting to get late and she was hungry. The sandwich she’d grabbed on the way between campus and the bus station had been a long time ago. 

She walked out toward the parking lot, hoping the drive had been okay and her Mother was on time. Then all of a sudden, she heard a cry of, “Nancy!” and she was all but tackled in a hug. 

“Mike!” she said with a little laugh, patting her brother’s arm with her free hand. “I didn’t know y–”

“Nancy, listen,” he whispered in her ear urgently. “Steve called. Something happened to Jonathan. He wants you to call Will.”

Nancy’s heart dropped. She saw her mother come into view, smiling and with her hand on her mouth, like she was overcome by how cute Mike was being, hugging her. “Mom doesn’t know, does she?” Nancy asked. 

Mike shook his head. “It sounded like…” He trailed off, obviously not wanting to say the next part out loud.

“Like Hawkins shit?” Nancy asked. 

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.”

Carefully putting on a cheerful smile, Nancy let go of Mike and said, “Hi, mom!”

“Hello, sweetie! Welcome home!” Karen said, folding Nancy into a tight hug. “Are you all ready to go?”

Looking at Mike, Nancy said, “Actually, I promised Jonathan I would call when I got here. He tends to worry.”

“Oh!” she said, looking surprised. “Okay. Well, let Mike take your bag and get it loaded into the car. I think I saw a pay phone around here somewhere!”

“I see it,” Nancy said, spotting the bank of phones. “I’ll be right back.”

Nancy hurried through the bus station to the telephones. She knew the number for the Springfield house by heart, and placed a collect call. It was Joyce who answered. “Nancy?”

“Yeah, hi. It’s me. Mike said something happened to Jonathan?”

“El and Steve both think he’s been taken. We’re trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“Taken?” Nancy felt herself start to panic, her heartbeat thundering and her breath coming in short little gasps. “Who would take him?”

“We’re not sure at this point. Steve is supposed to get here soon with some sort of evidence? Something for El, to help her find him.”

Suddenly overcome with sickening guilt, Nancy breathed, “The pictures from the study.” Had she gotten Jonathan into this? Had someone bad found out about him because of her? Because of her terrible need to pick at every little mystery until it was solved? “Oh, no!”

“Honey, you still with me?” Joyce asked.

“Yes!” Nancy answered. “Yes, I’m here. What do you need me to do?”

“Robin will meet you at your house and get you up to speed. She says she needs some information from you, and that she has resources.”

“Okay, right,” Nancy said, noticing the way her hand was shaking. “I’ll do everything I can.”

“I know you will, kiddo,” she replied. “Call us in the morning, if not sooner.”

“I will.” Nancy fought to keep her tears buried. If her mom found out about this, even more people might be in danger. “Bye, Joyce.”

“Bye, Nancy.”

Nancy rejoined her mother at the exit to the parking lot, trying her best to stay calm. She told Karen, “I should probably eat something,” even though the thought of food kind of made her stomach want to clench up and reject it. 

“Of course, honey,” Karen said, leading the way through the dark parking lot. “Are you okay?”

Nancy nodded, telling her, “I’m just going to miss him a lot this week.”

“Aw, you two are still going strong, huh?”

“Stronger than ever,” Nancy agreed, getting into the car. The only thing that kept her from completely losing her mind was the fact that all the previous male research subjects had been released within a few weeks of being “institutionalized.”

This wasn't as bad as it seemed.

Jonathan was going to be okay.

He was going to come back. 

Nancy just had to think these things often enough that she began to believe them. 

~*~

It felt like time hadn’t passed between when the guys in the van injected Jonathan with something, and when he woke up in a small, white room, laying on a bed. He felt groggy and out of it, pleasantly numb, but confused. He was wearing white clothes that weren’t his. 

He tried to get out of bed, but his limbs weren’t working. His upper lip still felt crusted over, and when he clumsily pushed at it, his fingers came back dusted with little black-red flakes of dried blood. 

Oh, but his head didn’t hurt anymore. He felt like he was floating, untethered to anyone or anything. 

No, that was wrong. He was supposed to be able to feel Steve, at least. Unless they’d driven him too far away from Steve. 

Steve and Nancy! He had to get back to them. He had to…

Jonathan rolled out of bed, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate well enough to stand. He crawled over to the door, and found it locked. 

Weakly, he pounded on the door. His mouth wouldn’t make words, so his cries for help went nowhere. When he tried to sense if there were any people around, Jonathan’s head bit back at him and began pounding, but there was nothing. 

About five minutes later (though it might have been longer, he was having trouble tracking time), the door opened. The person who came through it was a big guy, wearing blue scrubs. Jonathan tried to read his emotions, tried to get some feel for his intent, but there was nothing. The big guy had a friend behind him who was almost as big, and together they lifted Jonathan back onto the bed. There was another bite of a needle on his butt, and he started floating again.


	13. The Search

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nancy and Robin start running down leads that they hope will bring them to Jonathan. Hopper picks up Steve from the police station.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: It is not violent or graphic, but a sexual assault does take place in this chapter.

Nancy paced in her room, not sure what she was supposed to do. Looking over at Mike, Nancy asked him, "El can find him, right? Like she found Will? She can do it."

"Maybe," Mike told her. "I mean she couldn't the first time she tried, but maybe she just needs to keep trying?"

"What if he's dead?" Nancy asked him, clasping her shaking hands together and sitting down on the bed. "What if I led those assholes right to him, and now he's dead?"

"You can't think like that, okay?" Mike insisted, putting his arm around Nancy. "We can't give up. That's not what Jonathan would want us to do, would he?"

Nancy thought about this for a moment, then shook her head. "No. He needs us. The problem is that I just don't know what to do!"

She heard a scrabbling sound outside her window and for a moment, Nancy thought it must have been Steve climbing up to her window like he used to do. However, when she went over and opened the window, it was Robin who climbed into her room. 

“Hey,” she said with a little smile, pulling Nancy into a hug. “I’m so sorry.”

“Steve knew,” Nancy admitted. “He knew this whole thing was too dangerous. We should have listened to him.”

“Let’s not think like that,” Robin insisted. “When Jonathan is back, you can let Steve have all his I-told-you-sos. Until then, we have a job to do.”

“How can I help?” Mike asked. 

“We’ll see,” Robin said, before turning to Nancy. “How far did you get in locating the patients’ families?”

Nancy dug through her bag and pulled out her notebook. “I have twelve names and hometowns. There are thirteen more names I didn’t get a chance to run down yet. There were finals.”

Robin took the list and ran down it. “This is good,” she said. “We need to gather phone numbers for all the possible families. That means a lot of calls to 411.”

“Dad is really uptight about the phone,” Mike said. “I’m only allowed to call El once a week.”

“Yeah, I think he’d notice,” Nancy said. “Is there anywhere else we can go? Someone who won't mind us using their phone?”

Robin snapped her fingers. “Yes! I just need to make one call.” She pointed to the extension in Nancy’s room. “May I?”

“Go ahead,” Nancy insisted. 

Robin sat down on the bed and picked up the phone. She dialed a bunch of numbers, waited a few seconds, and then dialed a few more. After another short wait, she said, “Hi. This is Trainee Buckley, Hawkins, Indiana. Authorization Zulu-Bravo-Oscar-Charlie-Two-Two-Eight-Five-Alpha.”

Robin waited a few more moments. Then she said, “Hi. I need to make a report and request access to an operations site.” 

Nancy shared a look with her brother. She knew Robin had been in training, but this?

“Owens, Samuel, DOE,” Robin said in response to someone on the other end. “Yeah, that Owens.” 

Nancy saw Mike hug himself and turn away, suddenly interested in the old photos up on Nancy’s mirror. 

Robin continued. “Asset Alpha reported to her mother, who reported to me. Asset Gamma has been removed from the field by unknown actors.” She paused, listening, before adding, “Location is not evident at this time. That’s why I’m requesting the operations site. I have leads I can run down, but I need the proper resources.”

Robin covered the mouthpiece of the phone and sighed, rolling her eyes at Nancy as she listened. “The only name I have is Dr. Nathaniel Lahey, Northwestern University.”

Robin caught Nancy’s eye and made a writing motion with her free hand. Nancy grabbed a pen from her desk and turned to an empty page in her notebook, handing these both to Robin. 

Saying, “Uh-huh. Okay,” Robin wrote down some information. “I will get there in about…” She paused, looking at her watch. “Better give me ninety minutes. I’ll be ready to receive calls then. Thanks, Comm.”

Letting out a big breath, Robin hung up the phone. “I’ve never done that before,” she admitted with a careful smile. 

“Well, you sounded very professional,” Nancy assured her, angling her head to look at the information Robin had written down. “Where are you going?”

“Aren’t you coming?” Robin asked, like it was obvious Nancy could just go to this super secret place. 

Actually, Nancy wanted very few things more than to go with Robin. “Yeah, if you're letting me, I’ll come with.”

“What about me?” Mike asked.

Robin held up a finger as she tore out a page of the notebook, copied something onto it, and handed it to Mike. “Tomorrow's Friday. You have school in the morning,” Robin reminded him. “But Max has her license now, right?”

Mike nodded. 

“After school, call that number. I’ll give you our location then. Bring as many of the gang as can come.”

“Okay,” Mike nodded. “What should I say when Nancy isn’t here in the morning?”

“Just tell Mom that Robin and I went out for an early breakfast,” Nancy insisted. “And that I’ll call her when I know what my plans are for the day.”

“Right, okay,” Mike said. Then he awkwardly hugged Nancy. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Nancy said with a sigh, reaching for her bag and a change of clothes. “I think we’re going to need it.”

~*~

It was almost two am before the cops let Steve make a phone call. He dialed with shaking hands, relieved when Hopper answered, "Hello?"

"Hop, it's me," he said, pressing his fingers into his aching eyes. "I fucked up."

" _Steve_?" Hop asked, his voice booming, which Steve knew meant he was worried out of his mind. "Where are you? What happened? We expected you _hours_ ago, kid!"

"I'm at the state police station. Downtown," Steve admitted.

"Chicago?"

"No, Springfield." Steve sighed. "Can you come get me?"

"They set bail yet?" Hop asked, but he spoke again before Steve could answer. "Nevermind, I'm coming down there either way. Sit tight."

Feeling pitiful, Steve gave Hopper a soft, "Thanks," and waited for the dial tone before he handed the phone back to Officer Wilson.

It took less than twenty minutes for Hopper to show up. They hadn't even bothered moving Steve back to the holding cell yet, just leaving him handcuffed to Wilson's desk, waiting. Steve heard Hop before he saw him, booming voice carrying through the station. "Please, just let me see the kid."

Wilson was frowning as he led Hopper back to the bullpen. Hop didn't look too happy, either. He crouched down next to Steve, giving him a strong hug. "You gave us a scare, son."

"They think I took something. Drugs. But I didn't," Steve insisted, wishing he could hug Hopper in return. "I wouldn't. Not with…" Steve pressed his lips together, sure he wasn't supposed to mention Jonathan's disappearance where Officer Wilson could hear him. "Tell them I wouldn't."

"Test him," Hopper told Wilson. "He'll come back clean."

Wilson frowned, then he went over to the side of his desk and picked up Steve's bat. "There's also the matter of the deadly weapon he was in possession of at the time of arrest."

Hop looked at Steve and raised an eyebrow. Steve shrugged. "You never know?"

"Look," Hopper said to Wilson, taking his wallet out of his pocket. "I used to be a cop. I know, you've gotta uphold the law. I just want you to have the whole story." He showed Wilson a card from his wallet, saying, "This is my PI license. The kid was acting as my courier, bringing me some documents from Chicago. You know what a cesspool certain areas of the city can be. A pretty kid like this? He's gotta carry the bat. You know, let 'em know not to mess with him."

Wilson looked at Steve, then at the bat, then back at Steve. "I suppose that makes sense." He set the bat down. "There's still the matter of the traffic violation." He gave Steve another glance. "I suppose, since you're a fellow officer vouching for Mr. Harrington, we can let the DUI charge slide without waiting for the test. Just this once."

"Does that mean I can go?" Steve asked, looking from Wilson over to Hop.

Wilson held up the bat, "I'm confiscating this. Get a carry permit and a proper weapon." Shaking his head, Wilson added, "And we've already impounded your car. You can pay the fees at the impound lot when it opens in the morning."

"My bag, though?" Steve asked, looking to Hop. "It's the documents El needs, Hop. We gotta have those back."

"The pictures?" Wilson asked, picking up Jonathan's envelope from his desk. "What are these?"

"Evidence," Hopper insisted, taking the envelope from Wilson and opening it. He shuffled through the pictures as he said, "Yeah. This is the vital evidence I've been looking for. It's gonna blow my case wide open."

"Really?" Wilson asked him, looking over Hop's arm as he shuffled through them.

"Oh, yeah," Hop said. Turning to Steve, he added, "I can see why you were speeding. We needed these two weeks ago, didn't we?"

"Yes, sir," Steve insisted. He held his cuffed hands up higher and asked Officer Wilson, "A little help?"

"What do you say?" Hop asked Wilson, wearing his most charming smile. "Help us out of a bind?"

Steve smiled too, trying to look as innocent as possible.

Wilson sighed, but nodded and unlocked the cuffs around Steve's wrists. "No more speeding, young man."

"I swear to God," Steve insisted. "No more speeding."

"Okay."

Ten minutes later, Steve had a ticket in his pocket for $115, his backpack on his back, his bat confiscated, and his car still in the impound. He followed Hopper out to his truck, and got in the passenger side. As soon as Hop closed his door, Steve said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to screw up so bad. Jonathan needed me, and I go and… and…" Fuck, he was starting to lose it.

"You can make it right," Hopper said, starting the engine. "Do everything you can to help us find him."

"I will," Steve nodded, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "We are gonna find him, right?"

"Or die trying," Hop insisted, looking over his shoulder as he backed out of the parking spot.

~*~

Jonathan didn't know how long he floated for, but when he got back to his body, he felt heavy, but nice. He couldn't open his eyes, but someone was touching him. "Nancy?" he murmured, thinking that had to be her, with small hands and delicate touches. He wanted to ask her when she'd gotten there, if she was going to take him home, but his mouth wouldn't cooperate. "What?"

"It's okay, Jonathan," she said, brushing his hair back from his face. "Just relax."

"Steve?" he asked her. "Can't… can't feel him."

"Shhh," she said, reaching through the fly of his underwear. "He doesn't have to know."

Jonathan frowned. He tried to open his eyes but they were just so heavy, and he was so tired. God, he felt lost. And so sad. Taking a hitching breath, Jonathan turned onto his side toward Nancy and murmured, "Get him? Need him."

"You want Steve to be here for this?" Nancy asked, her hand gentle on his cock. 

Jonathan nodded, relieved that she understood. "'s better … Steve here."

"Okay," she said, stroking him. "Just come for me, sweetheart. Then I'll go get him."

Jonathan chuckled, wanting to reach for Nancy, but having a hard time coordinating his arms. "You guys…" he sighed, warmth spreading through his body. "...made me come in–in my sleep… oh, mmm." God, Nancy's hand felt good around him. "While I was sleeping… this morning. Was…" Jonathan caught his breath. "Was nice."

Nancy hummed. "I'm glad you liked it." 

Jonathan tried to reach her again, needing to feel how she loved him. He couldn't quite make it work. His brain wasn't cooperating. It felt like mush, disorganized and slipping away, out of his grasp. "Where are you, Nancy?"

"I'm right here," she insisted, her delicate hand speeding up.

"Won't you…" Jonathan tried to open his eyes again, but he couldn't. "Let me in?"

"You want to fuck me, baby?" Nancy asked, making Jonathan lift up his eyebrows in surprise. She didn't usually talk like that. God, he wished he could open his eyes to look at her.

He shook his head, and whispered, "Want you to … fuck me. Like… ah!" God, he was starting to get close. "Like last night, Nance. God, I could feel everything."

"Let's do that next," she murmured. Then she brought Jonathan over the edge and he came. "There we go, baby."

Jonathan hummed, relaxed and languid, and so sleepy. There was a little bite of pain in his thigh, and Jonathan floated out of bed again. Why couldn't he feel Nancy? 

~*~

Robin drove Nancy to Indianapolis, and parked outside a nondescript office building. She took the page she ripped out of Nancy’s notebook out of her pocket and pressed a set of numbers into the keypad at the door. It unlocked. 

“C’mon,” Robin said, ushering Nancy through the door first. “We’re on the second floor.”

“What is this place?” Nancy asked, following Robin into the stairwell halfway down the hallway. 

“Just an office building,” Robin assured her. “I’m sure most of the offices here are for normal businesses.” She stopped at one of the doors, and unlike the others in this hallway, it had a keypad lock, rather than a regular lock. Robin punched in another number and the door unlocked. 

Opening the door, Robin reached in and turned on the lights. Nancy wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it wasn’t an open space holding ten or so desks. Each desk held a phone and nothing else. There was a potted plastic tree in one corner, what looked like a break room in another, and a bathroom. 

“I…” Nancy said, looking around. “What?”

Robin went to the first desk and opened the top drawer. She pulled out a yellow pad of paper and a pen. “Here,” she said, setting these on the desk. “Gimme half your list and we’ll start gathering phone numbers.”

Nancy took her notebook from her purse. She ripped out the page where she’d been collecting information, folded it, then tore it in half, and gave half to Robin. “Let me know if you have trouble reading any of it.”

Robin looked it over and gave a little laugh. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve been practicing reading handwritten _Russian_. Your writing is practically newsprint in comparison.”

Nancy found herself giving Robin a laugh in return. “Okay.”

She sat down at the desk, and was pleased when Robin set up at the desk next door. Nancy smoothed out her half of the list, made sure her pen worked, and picked up the phone. 

She dialed, and the operator said, “City and state, please.”

“Kenosha, Wisconsin,” Nancy replied, waiting as she was transferred to the directory assistance operator there. 

An hour later, Nancy had a list of about fifty phone numbers. Turning to Robin, she said, “I think that’s as far as I can get until it’s late enough to start calling people’s houses.”

Nodding, Robin said, “I can try a national search on the rest of the names, but I’m not sure how far I’ll get. Some of them are pretty common.”

Thinking about how they could possibly narrow down the search, Nancy asked, “What about if we had birthdates? Would that help?”

Robin blinked at Nancy for a moment before giving a little laugh. “Yeah. That would totally help!”

“It’s four in the morning. Too early to call the house and have them look at those pictures?”

“Three in the morning there,” Robin pointed out, and god, Nancy must have been tired. 

For an entire year, she’d meticulously kept track of the time difference between her time zone and that of her boys. Just four months later, she’d forgotten? No, it was definitely the lack of sleep. 

Robin added, “I bet you could call. I doubt anyone there is sleeping tonight.”

Not with Jonathan gone. “That’s a good point.” She picked up the phone.

After one ring, Joyce answered, “Hello?”

“It’s Nancy,” she said. “I need some more information from the pictures Steve brought you.”

“We don’t have them yet,” Joyce said with a sigh. 

“But…” Nancy looked at her watch and did some back calculating. “Steve should be there by now. What happened?”

Joyce sounded like she was barely holding herself together. “He called. He’s fine,” she assured Nancy. “But he got himself arrested.”

“Steve got _arrested_?” Nancy asked, sharing a wide-eyed look with Robin.

Joyce hummed in agreement. “Jim is over there now, trying to sort things out.”

“What did he do?”

“Steve was light on details when he called,” Joyce said with a sigh. “I can give you a call back when they get home.”

“That would be good, thanks,” Nancy said. She almost said goodbye, before realizing Joyce wouldn’t have the number here. “Let me give you a different number.”

Looking over at Robin, she asked, “How do they contact us here?”

Robin motioned for Nancy to give her the phone handset. She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. Nancy recognized it as the same one that held the access codes for the building. “Hey, Joyce. You ready to write this down?” After pausing for a moment, Robin read a string of numbers. Then she said, “Yeah, I know. We’ll be in touch.”

After Robin handed her back the phone and Nancy hung it up, she said to Robin, “Steve got arrested.”

“I heard.”

She bit her lip, and when she blinked, a hot tear ran down her cheek. “He needs Jonathan back. He needs me. I can’t…” She shook her head. “I can’t be here anymore.”

Nancy stood up, but so did Robin. She put her arms around Nancy and hugged tightly. Her voice low and calm, Robin said, “Yeah, Harrington definitely needs us to come tell him not to be a dumbass.” Nancy couldn’t help but laugh as Robin added, “I’ll see what I can do.”

Robin let go of Nancy, picked up her phone, and started dialing. “Yeah, hi, Comm. Buckley here again.” She repeated her authorization code. “Any chance you could get us set up any closer to Springfield?” She paused a moment before saying, “Illinois.”

There was some nodding, and then Robin was writing a bunch of information down. “Oh, and can you forward calls to the new site? Just for the next twelve hours. Thanks!”

Robin put her hands on Nancy’s shoulders. “Gather your things and hit the bathroom. We’re getting back on the road as soon as possible.”

Nodding, Nancy squeezed Robin’s wrist and said, “Thanks, Robin. Just...thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”


	14. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team makes contact with Jonathan and learns a little bit more about where he's been taken.

Steve followed Hop into the house, noticing the lit Christmas tree in the window and the lights strung up on all the eaves. He wasn't looking forward to how weird it was going to be trying to sleep in the bed without Jonathan. His train of thought was interrupted when he saw Joyce, sitting at the dining room table with a mug in her hands. She was dressed, which probably meant she hadn’t slept at all, even though it was coming up on four in the morning. 

She looked up at Steve, her big, brown eyes just like Jonathan’s, and he _lost it._ Sinking to the floor at her feet, Steve cried, “I’m so sorry, Mom! I’m sorry... I’m sorry...”

Joyce wrapped her arms around Steve’s shoulders and shushed him, saying, “I know, sweetheart. I know,” and, “It’s not your fault.”

“I tried to tell him it wasn’t safe,” Steve insisted, letting Joyce brush the hair out of his face. “But he was having a hard time. He told me he thought they could fix what was wrong with him.”

“Why would these strangers know how to help him?” Joyce asked, looking more puzzled than mad, to Steve’s relief. Then, he realized something. 

“He never told you, did he?”

“Who? Jonathan?” Joyce searched Steve's face, looking for the answers to her questions

His voice stuck behind the lump in his throat, all Steve could do was nod.

“Told me what?”

Shit. This really wasn’t his secret to tell. But at this point, secrets were doing more harm than good. “When his headaches got bad,” Steve admitted, licking his lips, “he started drinking.”

“Oh, no,” Joyce breathed, sharing a look with Hop.

Steve continued, “He was having trouble not...not going back to it. Even after El helped him with the headaches. The people who grabbed him said they could help with…” Steve shook his head sadly, mad at himself for keeping this secret for so long. “With addiction.”

Joyce hummed in understanding, patting Hopper’s hand when he put it on her shoulder. “I had wondered what you meant when you talked about emptying his stash, back when we met with Owens,” she said. “After what Jonathan went through with his father, I’m actually not surprised he would try his hardest to not go down that route.”

Steve nodded, wiped his nose, and looked around the darkened house. “Where are the kids?”

“Sleeping,” Joyce told him. “Or at least pretending to. El was going to exhaust herself looking.”

“I brought the pictures,” Steve told her. “We have information on all the other research subjects. If El can find any of them, we might be able to find Jonathan nearby.”

“Oh,” Joyce said, standing up and going over to the phone again. “The girls are working on it already. They wanted some information. Here, let me give them a call.” Joyce picked up a piece of paper from the counter and dialed a number. 

“Let’s go through them and get everything organized,” Hopper said, sitting down across the table from Joyce’s seat. “Eliminate any spurious leads so we don’t waste El’s strength.”

Steve got up from the floor. He was about to sit down too, when he smelled Joyce’s coffee. “Be right back,” he said, heading for the kitchen. He split the coffee that was left in the pot into two mugs, poured a bunch of milk into one, and then started a new pot brewing. He had a feeling they were going to need it. 

At the phone, Joyce said, “Hey girls, it’s Joyce. Steve’s here now with the info, so give us a call when you can.” As Steve passed her, Joyce shrugged and said, “I got some sort of answering machine.”

“God, I hope they’re okay,” Steve replied.

He set the black coffee down next to Hop, earning a, “Thanks, kid,” and then sat at the table. Joyce sat with them as well.

Hop slid a photo over toward Steve, “This one is different than the others. It looks like one taken from a different sort of photo. Not a patient file, but maybe a portrait of some kind. Do you know who it is?”

Steve looked at the picture, and wondered when the hell Jonathan had taken it. “That’s the doctor, I think,” Steve told them. “Nancy knows his name. There were a whole bunch of pictures of him in his office.”

“Maybe he’s our best lead?” Joyce suggested, pulling the photo closer. 

Steve shrugged. “I mean, El’s probably going to find him at the hospital. His office there was really nice, and like, lived in. I doubt he spends much time away from it.”

Hop gave Steve a look that lasted long enough it made Steve feel self-conscious.

“What?”

“You’re _sure_ you want to be a teacher?” Hop asked, narrowing his eyes at Steve. 

“As opposed to what?”

Shaking his head, Hop said, “Nevermind. Let’s sort these by institutionalization date. We’ll have El look for the most recent patients first.”

~*~

Jonathan’s head hurt. So did his arm. When he blinked and opened his eyes, he saw he had an IV in his left arm, and a bag hung above his bed, dripping fluid. The room was still windowless and padded, and Jonathan was still wearing white clothes that weren’t his own. 

Where the hell was he?

God, his head hurt so much!

His ears buzzed and popped, deafeningly loud, and his temples throbbed. He wondered if this was what hungover felt like. 

Shit. 

Hungover from what?

The door opened and a woman in a nurse’s uniform came in. “Good morning, Jonathan. How are you doing?”

Shielding his eyes from the overhead lights (God, they burned!), Jonathan asked, “What’s going on? Where am I?”

“You’re fine,” she assured him. “You’re in the hospital. You’re coming off some pretty strong sedatives, so it’s normal not to remember much for a little while.”

Jonathan couldn’t remember much of anything, aside from his name, and this vague feeling that someone was missing. “Okay?”

“I need you to try and walk around a little bit, alright?” she said, lowering the rail on the right side of his bed. “We’ll get you up, use the bathroom, maybe eat a small breakfast. How does that sound?”

“Sure,” he said, feeling too tired and confused to be anything but cooperative. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and let the nurse give him a hand with standing up. Once he got his feet underneath him, he felt okay. Pretty strong. 

“Great,” said the nurse, wheeling Jonathan’s IV along with them as they walked out the door. There was a bathroom across the hall, and the nurse shooed him into it before closing the door behind him. 

What the hell was Jonathan even in the hospital for? He didn’t feel like anything was seriously wrong with him. Except maybe his head. 

He took a leak, and as he was washing his hands, he thought the sound of the water rushing out from the faucet reminded him of something important. It sounded like static. 

It sounded like…

The Inbetween. 

He remembered who was missing.

_It was him_. 

Jonathan left the water running and turned off the light. He sank down onto the bathroom floor and pushed his mind out Inbetween. It felt easier than it had before, and that’s when he remembered who he needed to contact. 

“Eleven!” 

He could see her laying down in the darkness of the Inbetween. She’d been sleeping, but his cry woke her up. She sat up in bed and ran toward Jonathan, throwing her arms around him. “Where are you? Where have you been?”

“I don’t know,” he told her, taking her hand and rapidly showing her the parts of the hospital he could remember. “They said I was sedated.”

El reached for someone, and then Will was beside her. 

“Jonathan!”

He reached for his brother, dimly aware of someone saying, “Shit! We need more midazolam.”

“It’s some sort of hospital,” Jonathan told his siblings. “There was something in the…” God, He was getting sleepy. “In the files… a second…”

Jonathan blinked and he lost them. He blinked again, and he lost the Inbetween. He was looking up at the nurse, his back on the cold bathroom floor and her needle in the IV attached to his arm, when everything slipped away again.

~*~

Steve stood up from the dining room table, his back cracking as he stretched it. Joyce was asleep on the couch just over in the living room, and Hop was staring at the piles of photographs that they’d made, like he was trying to draw some sort of conclusion by just staring at them. 

Either that, or he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. 

Steve stumbled toward the kitchen. It was still dark out, but the clock on the oven said it was quarter to seven. His stomach rumbled. Opening the pantry, Steve pulled out a box of cereal. 

Before he could find a bowl to pour it into, he heard running steps down the hall, and a door crash open. Steve set aside the cereal and followed the sound. He found the door to El’s room open, and Will sitting on the floor next to El’s bed, holding her hand. Both of them had their eyes closed. 

“Guys?” Steve asked, taking a step into the room. 

Hop was right behind him, asking, “What’s going on?”

El and Will opened their eyes at the same moment, which Steve had always found really creepy. Pushing herself up to sitting, El said, “Jonathan’s still alive.”

Steve let out a punched-in-the-gut sigh of relief. 

“He says he’s in a hospital,” Will added, glancing over at El for a second before addressing Steve and Hop. “They’ve been keeping him sedated.”

“That’s why I can’t find him,” El told the others, combing her fingers through her bed-messy hair. “They keep cutting him off from me!” She gave a frustrated little noise and a few books flew off her bookshelf and smacked into the wall.

Everyone except El jumped a bit at the sound.

Then the phone rang. 

Before Steve could get to it, Joyce was already answering. “Owens! Thank you for finally calling me back!”

She paused, listening to him for a moment. 

“How long is that going to take?” she asked, then cried. “National Security, my ass! Tell me what you know, right now!”

A few seconds later, Joyce pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it in disbelief for a second before giving it a little scream of frustration.

“What did he say?” Hopper asked before Steve could. 

Frowning, Joyce hung up the phone and wrapped her arms around herself. “He said they’ve got people on it, but he can’t give any details over the phone.”

“Well, is he coming here, then?” Steve asked her, his stomach in knots when she shook her head. 

“He wants us to stay out of it,” she snarled. “Says they’ve got it under control.”

“We’re not–” Steve looked at the adults, then over at El and Will. “We’re not gonna listen, right? We’re still gonna look for him?”

“Yes,” Eleven said, her voice hard as steel. “Show me the pictures.”

~*~

Robin pulled up outside the Byers house just as the sun was coming up. There was snow covering the lawn, and the driveway and sidewalk had been carefully cleared. At first, Nancy thought Jonathan must have done it, but then she realized that he’d only been back to the house a few times since the semester started. And both times it was while he was sick. One of the others must have shoveled the snow. Hopper, maybe. 

Nancy took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her hand hesitating on the door handle. 

“We’ll find him,” Robin assured her. 

Nodding, Nancy replied, “I hope so.” She opened the door. 

“Here’s my new number and address,” Robin said, giving Nancy a folded piece of paper. “I’ve got a feeling I’m gonna need all the help I can get running this down, so be ready to join me when you can.”

“I will,” Nancy promised. She gave Robin a tight smile and a squeeze to her hand before leaving the car and walking up the path to the house. 

She knocked on the door and a moment later, it opened. Hopper was there, not at all surprised to see her. “Come in, come in,” he said in a hushed tone, pointing to the pile of shoes at the door. “Leave yours here. We’re trying not to make too much noise.”

“Why?” Nancy asked, while doing as she was asked. 

Joyce came over, her footsteps soft, and she pulled Nancy into a tight hug. “You didn’t have to come all this way.”

“Yes, I did,” Nancy insisted, catching sight of Steve laid out on the couch. “Is he asleep? Is that why we’re being quiet?”

Joyce nodded. “The kids are downstairs, trying to use the pictures Steve brought. They need the quiet, too.”

Nancy took a deep breath and let it out. “Where are those pictures? I need to get some information ready for Robin.”

“She’s back in Hawkins?” Joyce asked, leading Nancy over to the dining room table, where there were photos laid out in neat little stacks.

“No,” Nancy said, picking up the closest stack and flipping through it. “She’s got an office here in town with a bank of phones set up. I’m going to join her there in a bit.”

“Nancy?” Steve asked, his voice sleepy and confused. He sat up, looking over the back of the couch at her. “Are you here?”

“I’m here,” she told him, quickly closing the distance between them. She sat on Steve’s lap and held him close, trying and failing not to cry. 

“I thought I might have been dreaming,” Steve murmured, giving her a rough kiss, like he was too desperate to see her to be gentle. She understood, squeezing him a little too tightly. Sniffling, Steve whispered, “I kinda misplaced our boyfriend.”

Nancy gave a surprised, if wet, laugh. “And got arrested, I heard.”

“It’s been a great night.” Steve just sort of held onto Nancy then, and she wasn’t inclined to stop him anytime soon. 

But then the door to the basement opened. Will and El came into the living room, El wrapped in towels and Will with his arms around himself. Joyce came over to them, taking El’s hand and asking, “Anything?”

Nancy could already tell that the answer was no, before El shook her head. 

“It’s like I can get close,” she told them, “but not close enough to see any details. I can’t tell where they are.”

“All the recordings came out fuzzy,” Will said with a sigh, dropping down into the chair. “Hey, Nancy.”

“Hi.” Looking around the room, Nancy said, “I suppose if we’re not having any luck on that front, I should go help Robin.” She nudged her nose against Steve’s cheek. “Give me a ride over there?”

“Don’t have my car,” Steve told her. 

“Get everything you need,” Hopper said. “I’ll drive you guys over and help out.”

“We can help too,” El said, giving her dad a plaintive look. 

“You have school today,” Hopper told her. “That big important math test we’ve been studying for the past three weeks?”

Glowering at Hop, El told him, “My _brother_ is _missing_!”

Hopper looked like he was going to argue, but Joyce quietly said, “Jim?”

He frowned, his mustache twitching a few times, and then said, “Fine! Fine! Everyone will come help.”

“Gonna rinse off,” El replied, rushing out of the room.

Nancy asked Steve, “Help me gather up the pictures? I think they’ll do the most good over there.”

“Sure,” Steve said, patting Nancy’s knee. “Let’s go.”

~*~

“Jonathan?” A voice said, coaxing and playful. “Are you with me? C’mon, wake up.”

God, Jonathan was so tired. Why couldn’t Steve just let him sleep? Jonathan's words were heavy and slurring in his mouth as he said, “Steve... Come back to bed, baby. Need more sleep.”

“Not yet,” he said, running a hand up and down Jonathan’s arm. “I need something else from you first.”

Jonathan put his hand on Steve’s, trying to feel him. Trying to figure out what was wrong. “You have a nightmare?” Jonathan asked, unable to reach Steve. Jonathan figured he must have been too tired to get around the block Steve had helped him create. 

“No nightmares,” Steve said, but his voice sounded funny. “Just tell me: you and me? What's our relationship? What are we to each other?"

Confused by why Steve would be asking, Jonathan made a questioning sound. 

“Do we love each other?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jonathan insisted. 

“And we have sex with each other?”

Slowly, Jonathan answered, “Yes. You know we do, Steve.”

Then the voice that was starting to sound less like Steve’s the more Jonathan woke up, said, “Shit. We haven’t used that sample from last night, have we?”

Jonathan tried to ask what the hell was going on, but a woman’s voice replied, “No, we froze it. Are you thinking he might be infected?”

“Aren’t they all at this point?” the man’s voice said.

Jonathan was finally able to tear his eyes open, and see that the man next to his bed was not Steve, but was at least fifteen years older with blue eyes and a long face. The woman in the room had dark black hair and olive skin. She noticed Jonathan looking at her and came closer. 

“Do you use protection with your lover, Jonathan?”

He glared up at her. When he tried to move his arm, it was attached to the bed with a padded leather cuff. So was his other arm, and his ankles too, for that matter. That’s right. He was trapped in some sort of hospital. Shit.

He didn’t know why it was any of their business that he and Steve didn’t use condoms. That was very personal, and very private information. He guessed they figured it had only ever been the three of them together, and Nancy was on the pill. It was just easier not to have to worry about it.

“He’s too awake now,” the man said, taking a step back. “He’s not going to tell us. We’ll just have to get a blood sample and test it.”

“That’s going to take days,” she answered, shaking her head. “That’s days we don’t have, according to the director.”

The man narrowed his eyes at her. “What do you want me to do? Risk contaminating the whole experiment?”

“He’s one of the strongest subjects we’ve ever found,” she insisted. “He got three out of three on Lahey's test, and he's been doing _something_ that makes him bleed every time he wakes up. The risk is worth it.”

The man sighed and went to the side of the room. 

Jonathan couldn’t crane his neck far enough to see what the man was doing, so he tested the strength of the restraints and glared at the woman. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but I promise you, you’re going to regret it.”

“Excuse me if I’m not trembling in my boots for some queer little lab rat,” she said, a look of disgust on her face. Addressing the man, she asked, “Do you think it’s a genetic defect? This is _not_ something we should allow to be carried on.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the man insisted. “It’s not like we need him to perform. Or for Gen One to perform either. According to the director, there’s only one trait that matters.” He walked closer to Jonathan and put a needle into the port on Jonathan’s IV line.

Before the drugs could set in, Jonathan closed his eyes and tried to contact El again. He’d just dropped Inbetween when a slap across his face brought him out of it again. 

“Hey! None of that,” cried the woman, and the fatigue pulled on Jonathan’s eyelids again. “Just get comfortable. You’re gonna be here awhile.”

“Fuck you,” Jonathan managed to say before his tongue got too heavy. The rest of his body followed and he dropped back into sleep.

~*~

Steve followed Nancy and Robin into the office building, bone-tired but too anxious to actually sleep. Will and El ambled along next to Steve, sort of leaning on each other as they walked. Joyce and Hop had gone to liberate Steve’s car from the impound and then find food and coffee to keep everyone going.

“Here are the birthdates you needed,” Nancy said, passing a piece of paper to Robin as they entered a really nondescript looking office. 

“Sweet,” Robin said, taking it from her. “I’ve got those sheets of names and numbers we generated last night. I got through a couple of them, but a bunch of numbers had no answer. We’ll have to go back to them later in the day.”

Nancy sat Steve down at a desk, then set down a piece of paper with writing on it, a pen, and a blank pad of paper. “Call the number, tell them you’re from the Daily Northwestern and ask if they’re related to this person,” she pointed to the name at the top of the sheet, “and if you can be put in contact with them.”

One of the phones rang and Steve saw Robin pick it up, “Hello?” She paused for a moment before saying, “Hey. Feel like driving to Springfield for the weekend?” She nodded a few times. “Get everyone to pack a bag then. Do the fake sleepover bit … No, not now. After school. Yeah, see you later.”

“Mike?” Nancy asked. 

“Yeah,” Robin replied, and Steve noticed the way El and Will both perked up at the exchange. “The gang’s all headed here.”

“Party time,” Steve said dryly, picking up his phone. 

Half an hour later, he’d gotten absolutely nowhere on his particular sheet. He hung up the phone with a sigh. When Nancy looked at him from the next desk over, he told her, “No one seems to know this girl. That was the last number.”

“Okay,” Nancy said, “let’s try another.”

Steve took it with a shrug. “Okay, fine.”

Robin came back into the room with Joyce and Hopper, setting a coffee and a wrapped breakfast sandwich in front of him. He dialed his phone and took a sip of his coffee, making a face when he realized it was black with no sugar.

“Hello?”

“Hi,” he said, passing the coffee over when Nancy gestured for it. “I’m looking for Travis Donaldson.”

“This is he,” the guy said, surprising Steve into pausing for too long before Nancy kicked him and he got with the program. 

“Hi. The same Travis Donaldson who was at Northwestern in '85?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Who is this?”

“My name is Steve. I’m from the-the Daily Northwestern, and I have some questions about a study you took part in at Northwestern hospital.”

The guy’s tone shifted. He sounded mad, or maybe even scared as he asked, “How did you even– No, I’m not talking–”

“Wait!” Steve cried when it sounded like he was going to hang up. “Wait. I’m not from the paper. They took my best friend. I’m just trying to find him.”

Travis gave a shaky breath, but he didn’t respond. 

Carefully, Steve asked, “Did they take you?”

“Yeah,” he said, but no more information left him.

" _Where_ did they take you?" Steve asked him. 

After another shaky breath, Travis said, "I don't know."

Looking over at Nancy, Steve asked Travis, "How long did they have you?"

With a little nervous laugh, he said, "I don't know, man. They had me drugged out of my mind. I came to at home maybe a week later? The comedown off their drugs was a bitch and I …" He gave another shaky laugh. "I went on a bender just to cope. Ended up losing about a month of my life." In a quieter voice he added, "And my spot at Northwestern."

"Jesus, man," Steve told him. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah." After a moment and a couple sniffles, Travis said, "I hope you find your friend. I gotta go."

He hung up, but Steve couldn't really blame him. He hung up his phone as well, picturing Jonathan going through the same sort of hell. It hurt so bad, Steve couldn't stand it. He got up from the desk and walked carefully, but directly into a room that turned out to be a storage closet. Nancy was right behind him, so he let her in before he closed the door.

And let himself fall apart. 

Steve sat down on the floor, sobs wracking his body. Nancy was right there next to him, wrapping her arms around Steve and asking, "What did that person say?"

It took Steve a few gulping breaths before he could answer her. "Not much more than we already knew."

"Then why…" she asked, pulling Steve's head closer to her and running her fingers through his hair. "Sorry. That's probably a stupid question. I know why."

Steve nodded. He let himself cry for another minute before he felt like maybe he was done. "I talked to someone else they took," he told Nancy. "He sounded so messed up about it. I just … Jonathan's going through that same thing? Is he going to be that messed up when we get him back? _If_ we get him back?"

"We'll get him back," Nancy insisted, her voice as hard and determined as he'd ever heard it. "If we have to go get that doctor and torture the location out of him, we'll get Jonathan back."

"Shit," Steve said with a nervous laugh. "With Hop and the Wonder Twins on our side, I bet we could pull it off."

With a little giggle, Nancy said, "What if El took him to the Upside Down to get him to talk? Scare the shit out of him."

Steve pictured it, and he laughed too. What else was there to do? Cry some more?


	15. Reaching Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> El and Will give Jonathan a new tool to use, while Nancy takes matters into her own hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: description of lots of blood, mentioned past child abuse, and mention of the AIDS crisis.

The next time Jonathan woke up, he did his best impression of still being asleep. He wasn’t quite as confused as before, and while things were still hazy, he knew it was important not to let them dose him anymore. 

He tried to be circumspect about grabbing the IV line so he could put a kink in the line, cut it off that way. But with the cuffs on his wrists, he couldn’t reach it. Not without a lot of struggling, which would surely be noticed. 

So Jonathan fell back on his first plan. Call for help.

Jonathan cleared his mind. 

Now that he'd been there a few times, Jonathan found it easier to fall into the Inbetween. On his way to find El, he bumped into Steve and Nancy. The ways their minds felt were so familiar to him that he was drawn in. They were somewhere small and dark, holding onto each other and crying.

At first, Jonathan thought something had happened to them, too. But as he got closer, he realized they were crying not for themselves, but for him.

Beside Jonathan, Will said, "They miss you."

"I miss them, too," Jonathan said, looking over to see El standing with Will, their hands linked. "Tell them I love them?"

Will nodded.

"Can you see where I am?"

El shook her head sadly. "You're still too fuzzy. Out of focus. I can't push out much farther than your room."

Thinking of his earlier plan, Jonathan asked, "How do I get the drugs to stop?" He showed her the restraints and the IV in his arm. "If I had a hand, I could…" he showed her how pinching the line would stop it from flowing, and stop the people keeping him from giving him any more sedatives.

Shaking her head, El told him, "I don't know. I don't know."

"If it was you lying there," Will said to her softly, "how would you do it? Can you show me?"

El looked at Will for a moment, and then he nodded. He closed his eyes, just sort of standing there for a moment.

"What's he doing?" Jonathan asked El.

She held up a finger, watching Will's face intently. "Just wait."

"I don't know how much time I have before they realize I'm awake."

"Wait," El insisted. 

Jonathan watched as Will's face scrunched up with pain. He started breathing hard, clutching El's hand tightly. And then he cried out, falling to one knee.

"Will!" Jonathan cried out.

El stopped Jonathan from touching Will. "Wait!"

Shaking his head, Will said, "It's like…" He opened his eyes. "It's like tearing open a new door. Hurts like hell."

"But you did it?" El asked him.

Will nodded.

"Did what?" Jonathan demanded, hating the way their conversations skipped five or six steps all at once. "What did you do?"

Instead of answering him, El asked Will, "Can you show Jonathan how?"

Will nodded again.

"How to do _what_?"

Taking a deep breath, Will held it for just a second and then let it out. He said, "I've been learning how to do the things El can do. I've figured out how her brain works well enough to be able to copy them with mine."

Jonathan wanted to be surprised, he wanted to ask how the hell it was possible, but the last three years had taught him that so much more was possible than he'd previously believed. 

"You're going to show me?" Jonathan asked his brother. "Why can't El show me?"

"There's a translation step from El to us. Letting me do the translation will be faster," Will replied. He reached for Jonathan, putting his hands on either side of Jonathan's face and touching their foreheads together. "I need you to trust me."

"I do," Jonathan insisted.

"It might not work," Will warned him. "I can show you what to do, but I can't do it for you. And it's gonna hurt."

"Is it dangerous?"

El answered him. "Yes."

Nodding, Jonathan took a deep breath. When he was ready, he met his brother's eyes and said, "Show me what to do."

~*~

Nancy was just about to dial her next number when Robin answered a call that caught her interest. "Really?" Robin asked. "No, this is great. Tell me more."

Nancy watched as Robin wrote down "Execugen," and said, "Do you have information about any real estate holdings, especially in the Chicago area?" Robin paused. "Where is that?" She wrote down "Rockford" and then asked, "How many?" Robin sighed. "Better give me all of them."

Nancy watched Robin start writing down address after address.

Behind her, Steve said, "Oh, shit! Oh, shit!"

Nancy turned around to see Will convulsing on the floor. Bright red rivulets of blood dripped from both nostrils and his pale skin was underlaid with dark branching veins. It reminded Nancy of when he'd been possessed by the Mind Flayer, and she was terrified something similar was happening again.

Joyce moved toward Will, but El cried out, "Don't touch him!" Joyce stopped.

"What's happening to him?" Joyce demanded, starting forward again until Hopper grabbed and held her.

Nancy found herself reaching for Steve, holding onto him as they watched Will writhe on the floor, obviously in pain.

"He's helping Jonathan," El insisted. "You have to let him finish."

"Helping Jonathan?" Steve asked. "He looks like he's dying!"

Nancy shivered, her heart clenching as she watched Will. She couldn't stand knowing he was in pain, but she also trusted that El knew what she was talking about. Nancy held herself back, holding onto Steve so she wouldn't do something stupid and try to help Will.

"He'll be fine," El insisted, keeping her body between Will and everyone else. "Please, just be _quiet_."

Nancy buried her face against Steve's chest, unable to bear watching anymore.

Then Will groaned, and opened his eyes. Joyce was at his side in an instant, pulling him into her arms. Nancy got her coat from the back of her desk chair and brought it over, covering Will’s shivering legs while Steve came back with an entire roll of paper towels. 

“Did it work?” Nancy asked, addressing El more than Will, but it was Will who answered her. 

Shaking as Joyce pressed paper towels to his nose to stem the flow of blood, Will said, “I showed him what to do. Now it’s up to him.”

Fearing for Jonathan’s safety, Nancy asked, “Is this going to happen to him, too?”

El gave Nancy a look that didn’t quell Nancy’s fears at all.

Robin joined them, carefully saying, “Not to kill the mood or anything, but my friends at the IRS have done a little digging.”

“And?” Hop asked her, his hand on Joyce’s shoulder as she took care of Will. 

“And,” Robin said, “the foundation that funds Dr. Lahey’s study doesn’t appear to do anything else. No other studies. No other charitable causes. Nothing.”

“It’s a phony front,” Hop surmised, getting a nod from Robin.

“Did they say where the foundation is getting its money?” Nancy asked her. 

“Lots of small ‘anonymous’ donations,” Robin said, rolling her eyes. 

Hopper made a frustrated noise. “Laundered money, through a fake charity? It could be anyone.”

Robin held up a hand. “They did have one corporate donor, Execugen. They own over a dozen properties in northern Illinois, mostly around Rockford.”

“You think Jonathan might be at one of them?” Nancy asked her. 

“It’s the best lead we’ve gotten so far,” Robin insisted.

"Are any of them hospitals?" El asked her, but Robin shook her head.

“Think we can get Owens’ guys to search them all?” Hopper asked her, and Robin shrugged. Hop added, “I’m not convinced he’s taking this very seriously. “

“I’m not convinced, either,” Joyce insisted. 

Steve asked the others, “Is there some way to narrow them down?” He looked at El. 

El shrugged, looking lost. “I don’t know. I can’t see them. I can’t see where they are. I don’t know!”

Nancy moved to go give El a hug, but Hopper got to her first. “It’s okay, kiddo,” he told her. “It’s okay. We’ll find him somehow.”

“Give Jonathan a chance to rest,” Will said, his voice croaking. “He’ll call us when he can.”

“You need rest, too,” El told him, breaking out of Hopper’s hold and kneeling down next to Will. She brushed her hand back through his hair. “You can’t help while you’re hurting.”

“I know,” he told her, closing his eyes and nodding his head. “I know.”

Later on, after Joyce had taken Will and El back to the house to rest, and Steve and Robin were back to making calls, Nancy pulled Hopper to the side of the room. “I had an idea,” she told him, keeping her voice to a whisper.

Hopper narrowed his eyes at her. “What idea?”

“They _took_ one of us,” she said, keeping her eyes on Hopper’s so he knew how serious she was. “I say _we_ take one of _them_.”

Hopper crossed his arms over his chest and ran his tongue across his teeth. “Who’d you have in mind?”

Pleased that he hadn’t dismissed her plan outright, she said, “The last person we know Jonathan had contact with – Dr. Lahey.”

“Get the location out of him somehow?” Hopper asked. 

Nancy nodded. “Or at least the next name down the list.”

Leaning back against the wall, Hopper thumped the back of his head against it and looked up at the ceiling. “We don’t know what kind of protection Lahey might have. Or how connected he is. There might be retaliation.”

Feeling more than a little vicious, Nancy hissed, “Then we go to _war_!”

Hopper let out a long, slow breath. He met Nancy’s eyes for a long moment before speaking again. “I say jump, you say how high. Understand?”

“I understand,” Nancy told him with a solemn nod.

“Get some rest. We’ll go tonight.”

Nancy nodded. “Okay.”

Putting his finger almost in Nancy’s face, Hopper added, “Tell no one else.”

“Got it.”

Nancy broke away from Hopper and headed back to the desk she’d been using. She made calls for another half hour, getting nowhere, and then she approached Steve. 

“Can I take your car back to the house? I think I need some sleep before I’ll be of any more use.”

Nodding, Steve said, “God, yeah. I need to crash, too.” Calling across the room, Steve asked, “Robin? You cool if we go sleep for a bit?”

Robin looked at the clock, and nodded. “Max and the boys will be here in a couple hours. I’ll get them started and then come crash too.”

“Okay.”

Nancy held Steve’s hand as they left the office building. They drove back to the house fairly silently, choked down the sandwiches Joyce made them eat, and then got into bed. 

When Steve pulled Nancy onto him, her arm over his chest, her leg over his thighs, and her cheek pillowed on his shoulder, Nancy recognized what he was doing. “I’m sorry I’m not him,” she whispered.

Steve blinked at her a few times, looking confused, before he must have realized what he’d done. “Shit. Sorry, Nancy. I’m just so used to…”

“I know,” Nancy told him. “I know. It’s okay.”

“Do you want to rearrange some other way?” he asked, rubbing his hand up and down her back.

Nancy shook her head, just a little. “No. This is good.”

Steve sniffled and kissed her hair. “Thanks.”

“Get some sleep, Steve.”

~*~

Will had been right. Tearing open the doorway in his brain that would let Jonathan manipulate his IV line, and maybe even his restraints, _hurt_. It hurt worse than the headaches he’d been getting at school. It hurt worse than the time Lonnie had twisted his arm so hard it broke. It hurt so much that Jonathan heard himself screaming and couldn’t stop. 

When it was done, warm, wet blood dripped from his nose and the veins in Jonathan’s arms looked almost black. He lay there, panting, unable to move and trying not to get sick from the taste of blood in his mouth. A searing, sharp pain above his left eye wouldn’t fade, and the world around him went dark, even without another dose of whatever they had him on. 

Dimly, Jonathan heard his keepers rush into his room and start yelling at each other. 

“Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of blood!” said one of them, and Jonathan wondered in a detached sort of way if he should be worried. El had said this process was going to be risky.

“Make sure you don’t touch it,” said another. 

“Why not?” asked the first.

“He’s a gay,” said the second. “They don’t pay us enough to risk catching that AIDS shit. Dose him and we’ll gown all the way up before we clean it.”

Jonathan wished he had the energy to curse them out for being ignorant assholes, but his ears got muffled by the new dose of drugs and he slipped away again.

~*~

Steve was walking through campus, trying to get to his history final, when he realized that Jonathan was walking in front of him. 

“Hey,” he called out, speeding up. “Hey, Jonathan!”

Jonathan didn’t turn around or even slow down at all. It was like he couldn’t hear Steve, so he kept walking. Somehow Jonathan kept walking faster than Steve could keep up with him. He walked, easy as you please, and Steve sprinted, but never got any closer. 

A great hole opened up in the ground and Steve fell. He landed on his back. The wind knocked out of him, and when he breathed in it was the noxious, burning air of the Upside Down. He choked and gasped, crying out, “Jonathan! Jonathan!” and reaching up toward the still-open gap to the Rightside Up.

On the next wracking breath in, Steve awoke. He sat up, putting his head between his knees and just breathed for a long moment until he felt less like he was about to explode from fright. 

Jonathan wasn’t in the bed when Steve looked over for him, which Steve knew would be the case. He still looked. 

Nancy wasn’t there either. 

Reaching over, Steve turned on the bedside lamp. His watch said it was just past midnight. And there was a note on the nightstand.

_Steve –_

_Hop and I are following a lead. Stay safe and get some rest._

_Love you._

_– Nancy_

“Love you, too,” Steve said out loud, feeling desperately lonely. 

He got out of bed and pulled on some cleanish clothes from his bag. Wandering out of his room, he used the bathroom, and headed for the kitchen. There was a plate of premade sandwiches in the fridge, so he grabbed one and forced himself to eat it as he looked around for someone else to talk to. 

Robin was asleep on the couch, and the door to the basement was open. There was a light on down there, so Steve decided to follow. 

He trudged down the stairs, stopping when he got far enough to see how much it had changed. Instead of the gray concrete floor at the bottom of the steps, there was wooden flooring. It covered the space between the door to El’s tub and a new door on the far end of the basement. 

The concrete walls of the basement had also been hidden behind drywall, painted a bright white color. The ceiling was finished too. 

There were a couple carpets on the wooden floor, and a couch against one of the walls. Will was laying on the couch, one arm thrown over his eyes. Steve was about to turn back and let him sleep, but Will spoke. 

“I’m just resting. You can come in.”

“What are you doing down here?” Steve asked, heading down the rest of the steps. He noticed there was a TV set opposite from the couch, and it had Will’s Atari attached. 

Without uncovering his eyes, Will pointed toward the door to the bathroom. “El’s in the tub, looking some more. We’re waiting for Jonathan to wake up again.”

“Did you sleep?” Steve asked him, sitting down in the chair next to the couch. “Did she?”

“Some,” Will said with a nod. “But so far, Jonathan has woken up every four hours. He was there, but hard to reach just about four hours ago. El’s hoping if she’s in the bath when he comes out of it this time, she’ll be able to make a better connection. Maybe find out where he is.”

Steve sighed and shook his head. This was so messed up. “Did Mike and the others make it in?”

“Yeah. They called a few minutes ago. They finished making calls to the west coast, so they’re on their way back here for the night.”

Steve wondered if it was the phone call that woke him up. “Any idea where Nancy and Hop went?”

Will shook his head. “Whatever it is, Hop asked us to give them a few hours head start before checking in on them.”

Frowning, Steve said, “That sounds…”

“Fishy, yeah,” Will agreed. “If we weren’t saving our strength for Jonathan, we would have followed them by now.”

“You know,” Steve said, reaching over and nudging Will’s foot with his own, “the way you use ‘we’ like that is kinda creepy.”

Will gave a little snort of laughter. “Yeah, it kind of is. S–”

He cut himself off, standing up suddenly and heading for the bathroom. 

“What’s going on?” Steve asked, following Will and getting shut in the warmer, humid, completely dark room when Will closed the door again. 

“She’s almost got it,” Will told him in a harsh whisper. “I’m gonna help.”

There was a rustling noise and then a splash. Steve found the wall of the room, and then a chair. He sat down, covering his eyes and trying not to think about how _anything_ could be in a room this dark. 

Before he got too far, he heard Jonathan’s voice in the static blasting from the stereo. “You gotta show me again. I’m not getting it.”

“Yes, you are,” said El’s voice, over the radio, but not in person. Steve thought that was just about the weirdest shit he’d ever experienced. Demogorgon notwithstanding. “See? That buckle is looser. You moved that.”

“Holy shit,” Jonathan said, and hearing just that little bit of excitement in his voice made Steve’s heart clench in his chest. 

It was Will who spoke next. “We need to find out where he is.”

“Keep trying,” El said, presumably to Jonathan. “We’ll be back in a minute.”

“How far away from him do you think we can go?” Will asked.

When El said, “Let’s hope it’s far enough to follow someone who isn’t drugged,” Steve felt like he was eavesdropping. 

Still, he had to be here, he had to know how things were going with Jonathan, and whether or not he was okay. 

“What about her?” Will asked. 

“She’s–” El replied, humming for a second. “She’s been here awhile.”

“Can we access her memories?”

“If you help me.”

“I’m here. Use what you need.” Will was so selfless in his offer that it made a lump rise up in Steve’s throat. He couldn’t tell if Will’s devotion was to El or Jonathan or both of them. All he knew was that he appreciated it so fucking much. 

“Steve?” El said out loud, not through the radio.

“Yeah?” he replied, torn from his thoughts. 

“Get ready to write this down.”

“Shit, okay,” he told her, jumping up and fumbling his way to the door. He took the basement steps two at a time, grabbed the pad of paper and pen from next to the kitchen phone, and flew back down the steps. “I’m good,” he told her when he got back into the room, leaving the door open so he could see what he was writing. “I’m ready.”

Will read out an address, and the sound came from the stereo and his mouth at the same time, which made it surprisingly difficult to understand. Still, Steve thought he got it right. “Can you repeat it?” he asked, just in case. 

“I’m slipping,” El said, and then there was a splash in the tub. 

Looking over, Steve could see in the light coming through the door that El and Will were both in the tub, sitting up and looking at each other. Steve got the impression that they’d been floating next to each other, with their feet at each others’ heads. El looked drained, and like she was about to cry. 

“Shit,” Will sighed, pulling El into a hug. “It’s okay,” he told her. “It’s okay. We need some rest.”

“I think I got it right,” Steve told them. “You guys need some towels?”

Will looked over at Steve, his wet hair in his face and his nose bloody. “Yeah. Thanks.” 

Steve set the address aside and grabbed a towel from the cabinet Jonathan had shown him over Thanksgiving weekend. He reached down, helping Will out of the tub and wrapping the towel around him, and his soaking-wet clothes. 

He got another towel and helped El out. Unlike Will, it seemed like she’d had enough advanced warning to put on her swimsuit before getting in the tub. As Steve wrapped the towel around her, she looked really pale and unfocused, like she was about to faint. 

“Hey,” Steve told her, brushing the wet hair away from her face. “Hold onto me, alright? I’ll get you up to your room.”

El nodded, and when she put her arms around Steve’s neck and curled against his chest, she seemed so damn small. Steve carried her out of the bathroom and up the stairs, through the kitchen and into her room. 

As he laid her on the bed, Steve told El, “I’ll get Mom to come help you get changed, okay?” 

He piled blankets on top of her, and didn’t miss the way she shivered as she nodded. 

Steve only got half of the way to Joyce and Hop’s room before he looked back and had to lunge and catch Will before he cracked his head on the floor. “Jesus Christ,” Steve sighed, laying Will down on the hallway floor and watching as he blinked a few times before focusing on Steve. 

“What happened?” Will’s lips were blue and he shivered, his wet clothes rapidly cooling.

“You fainted,” Steve said, getting his arms under Will and picking him up. He weighed more than El, but not by much, and it wasn’t that hard to get him down the hall and into his room and put him on his bed. He covered Will up with a pile of blankets too, saying, “Can you get those wet clothes off, or do you need help?”

Will moved his arm weakly, but didn’t get very far. 

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be back in a sec.”

After sending Joyce to El, Steve went back for Will. He got one of the big sweatshirts that used to be Jonathan’s out of Will’s closet. It took a bit of doing, but he managed to wrestle Will’s gangly limbs out of his long shirt and pants. He put the sweatshirt over Will’s head, piled up all the blankets again, and told him, “You’re on your own for the underwear, bud.” He set a pair of sweatpants on top of the blanket pile.

Will gave a sleepy little laugh. “Thanks, Steve.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Steve insisted. He sat down on the floor next to Will’s bed and asked, “Was he really okay?”

“He’s hanging in there,” Will insisted. “We’ll get him out.”

“Not if you and El exhaust yourselves before we get there,” Steve insisted. 

The door opened and Dustin was standing there. “Hey, guys.”

“Hey,” Steve said, raising up a hand toward Dustin, which he took and clasped, doing an abbreviated version of the secret handshake they’d devised almost two years ago. It made Steve smile as he insisted, “Will needs some sleep.”

Dustin ignored Steve, leaning in to give Will a tight hug. “Long time, no see, Will.”

“How’s it going, Dustin?”

“I feel a lot better than you look,” Dustin said with a grin, offering Steve his hand again and getting Steve to his feet. “Hell of a way to start Christmas break.”

Will gave a little chuckle, but he had his eyes closed and Steve could tell he was pretty close to falling asleep. Steering Dustin out the door, Steve turned out the light and called back to Will, “Good night.” After closing Will’s door, he told Dustin, “The Wonder Twins got us an address.”

Dustin let out a heavy breath. “Oh, thank god.” He looked at Steve for a moment before saying, “How are you doing?”

Steve narrowed his eyes at Dustin, “Hey. _I’m_ supposed to be the adult here. Don’t give me that shit.”

Dustin rolled his eyes and pushed Steve a little. “Shut the fuck up, man. Robin told me you got arrested. So I’m gonna ask again. How are you doing?”

Steve sighed and slumped in on himself saying, “Not good.” He angled his head toward the kitchen and led the way over there. Sinking down into one of the chairs, he looked up at Dustin. “Being with someone who has superpowers isn’t as great as you’d think it would be.”

Dustin laughed and sat down across the table. “When do you think we’ll check out that address?”

Steve shrugged. “Everyone’s running on empty, plus Nancy and Hopper went somewhere. We should probably wait until morning. Regroup then.” God, Steve really wasn’t looking forward to trying to sleep without Jonathan or Nancy with him. Still, he said to Dustin, "Try to get some sleep."

“Orrr…” Dustin said with a smile that said he was up to something. 

“Or what?” Steve asked.

Dustin pulled a pack of cards out of his coat pocket. “Gin rummy?”

Unable to help himself, Steve laughed and nodded. A distraction sounded perfect right about then. “Yeah, okay, man. Thanks.”

Dustin winked and said, “Anytime, my friend. Anytime.”


	16. Preparing for War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nancy and Hopper commit crimes, Jonathan works on getting himself free, and Steve tries to hold everyone all together.

Nancy made sure her mask was on straight as she and Hopper approached the doctor’s house. The gate in the fence opened easily and the backyard wasn’t lit. When Hopper flicked on the flashlight and handed it to her, Nancy traded him for the switchblade he’d given her earlier. She held the flashlight as he popped open the lock on the sliding back door, and went in.

After making a quick look around the doorframe to double check the absence of an alarm switch, Nancy turned off the flashlight and let her eyes adjust to the lack of light. Working together, they searched the rooms on the ground floor, and then made their way upstairs. One of the stairs creaked when Hopper stepped on it and they both froze. 

Nothing happened. 

Soft snores came from one of the rooms on the second floor, and Hopper finished climbing. Nancy skipped the step that had made noise, moving as quietly as she could. They stopped outside the bedroom for a long moment, listening to the snores. 

Then, Hopper tapped Nancy’s shoulder and gestured for her to stay put. She nodded and watched as Hopper went to the other doors on the second floor, stopping outside each one and listening before moving in. 

It took forever, but eventually, Hopper got back. He touched Nancy as he went past her and then held up three fingers. He counted down, and then rushed the bedroom, Nancy right behind him. 

In three big strides, Hopper went into the bedroom, grabbed the man out of bed into a tight, kneeling bear hug with his left arm and slapped his right hand over Lahey's mouth. Nancy turned on her flashlight, making sure there was no one else in the bed before shining it into Dr. Lahey’s face. She cocked her gun and pressed it into the side of the doctor’s head, angling the muzzle away from Hop as best she could.

“If you scream, you’re dead,” Hopper told him. “Do you understand?”

Lahey nodded, his eyes wide and frightened. 

Quick as a flash, Hopper moved his right hand from Lahey’s mouth to his forehead, craning his head back to limit his range of motion. 

“W-what do you want?” he asked, his voice trembling. 

As they had planned, Nancy let Hopper do the talking. “Where was Jonathan Byers taken?”

“I don’t… I don’t know!” he insisted, his eyes going wider as Nancy pressed the barrel of her gun harder against his temple. “Honestly, I don’t! I–I identify the subjects and I analyze the data. Someone else is in charge of the beta site.”

“Someone from Execugen?”

Lahey nodded. “All I have is a phone number. I call them when I need to arrange a pick up.”

“How many?” Hopper asked, his voice vicious and his arm taught as he pulled Lahey’s head back even farther. “How many people have you given them?”

“B-byers was thirty–” His throat clicked dryly as he tried to swallow. “He was subject thirty-eight.”

Nancy forced herself not to feel for the thirty-eight people who had undoubtedly been traumatized by this man and his colleagues. She needed to focus, didn't have time for tears or nausea, not right now.

Hopper asked, “You said you analyze the data?”

Lahey nodded. 

“Do you keep any files at home?”

He nodded again.

“You are going to hold very, very still or my partner is going to shoot you. And she’s a great shot, so I wouldn’t push it if I was you,”

Lahey nodded a third time. 

Hopper took the brand new roll of duct tape from his pocket and unwrapped it, pocketing the wrapper before crossing Lahey’s arms behind his back and taping them together. “Alright. Let’s go get those files.”

Hopper kept his hand on Lahey’s shoulder while Nancy put the safety on her gun and tucked it into the holster Hop had given her to wear. As a group, they marched down the stairs and into some sort of office. When Lahey indicated, “That drawer, there,” Nancy aimed her flashlight at it and opened the drawer. 

Paging through the folder tabs, she found several marked with "Execugen study." The files dated back almost ten years. God, Dr. Lahey must have started working for them not that long after he graduated from med school. She wondered how much money it cost to buy an up-and-coming doctor who specialized in...genetics, according to his residency papers, which were also in this drawer. 

“What is a geneticist doing running an addiction study?” Nancy asked, going over to where Hop was duct taping Lahey to his office chair. “What are you doing to your subjects?”

Lahey shook his head and shrugged, and Nancy could tell he had an answer he wasn’t giving her. Nancy grabbed as many folders as she could find, including a set of folders that were labeled with weird numbers. The first one had a log of ages and observations corresponding to those ages. 

The thing was, the ages started at six months, and mostly covered the ages of two to five. 

“Let’s go,” Hopper said, and Nancy knew he was right. She didn’t have time to read all of this now. She’d have to bring it with her and read it later. 

She stacked up as many of the files as she could, loading them into her arms. It was a good thing she was used to carrying textbooks. “Got it.”

Hopper bent close to Lahey and murmured something to him, some sort of threat, Nancy thought. Then they slipped out through the back door of the house, closing it behind them and leaving Lahey duct taped to his chair in the study. 

Hop’s truck was parked around the corner, so they made their way to it, got in, and drove away. Nancy took off her mask, pushing her sweaty hair away from her face. Hopper took off his mask as well.

“We’ve got a three hour drive ahead of us,” Hopper told her. “Read as much of that shit as you can before we get there.”

“Are you sure we should go all the way back to Springfield?” Nancy asked him, setting the pile on the floor, and bringing the top folder onto her lap. She clicked on her flashlight. “If Robin is right, they’re holding Jonathan somewhere around Rockford.”

Hopper drove silently, but Nancy noticed the way he got onto the freeway heading west instead of south. 

Nancy got to reading.

~*~

Since his room didn’t have any clocks or windows, Jonathan had no idea what time of day it was. All he could focus on was the belt holding his left wrist in the padded restraint. Miraculously, it moved. It wasn’t very much, and Jonathan had to stop and rest between each tiny little push, but eventually, he got his arm free. 

Maybe it wasn’t the most subtle thing to do, but Jonathan couldn’t help it. He got the tape off his arm and pulled out the IV needle, pressing a bit of his hospital gown against the wound to stop it from bleeding. 

Now what was he supposed to do?

Jonathan closed his eyes and looked for El, but she was sleeping and felt weak. The same went for Will. They’d been overextending themselves trying to help him, and now they needed to rest. Jonathan couldn’t fault them for that. Not at all. 

In fact, he probably needed more rest as well. That spot above his left eye still hurt like hell and his left nostril was still bleeding sluggishly, getting drops of bright red blood on his hospital gown. 

So how was he supposed to rest without letting them dose him again?

Looking down at the IV, Jonathan had an idea. He took the needle and looked at it, finding it was actually a flexible plastic bit of tubing that had been in his arm. Even better. Using his teeth, Jonathan bit off the plastic bit, spitting it onto the floor. Then he placed the bigger bit that attached it to the rest of the IV line back on his arm, taping it in place with the same tape that held it originally. Now it looked more or less like it had before, but it wasn’t dumping fluid into his body. 

Then Jonathan placed his left hand back in the padded restraint and flipped it closed as best he could. If he held his arm just so, it looked like it was still fastened around his wrist. 

When all that was done, Jonathan let himself rest. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend that Nancy and Steve were with him. If they were here, lying beside him, he would sleep well. He would sleep and get stronger and not have to worry about monsters that jumped out of the darkness. 

Eventually, someone came into the room. Jonathan pretended to be asleep, doing his best to keep his breaths shallow and steady. The person didn’t talk. They didn’t even check on Jonathan very thoroughly. They just approached the IV stand, messed with it (probably injected another dose), and then left the room again.

His deception had worked, or at least it had passed the first test. Now the only thing left to do was get a little more rest and be ready for it when his siblings came calling. 

~*~

Steve managed to catch a couple more hours of sleep before morning, but eventually he was too restless to stay in bed any longer. With the sun still below the horizon, Steve put on his hat and his coat and slipped out of the house. He drove over to the grocery store, picking up a couple dozen doughnuts, a couple cartons of eggs and milk, and some more coffee. 

He brought these home and set them out in the kitchen. He started a big pot of coffee, cooked eggs (scrambled, because he was horrible at trying to make them any other way) and set out plates and cups, and eventually people started showing up. 

Robin was first. She had her hair pulled up behind her head, strands of it flying away, and she gave him a sideways sort of hug as he stood at the stove. “What did I miss?”

“Got an address,” Steve said, pointing to where he’d set the pad of paper on the counter after he and Dustin had called it quits on Gin Rummy for the night.

Making an interested noise, Robin went over and picked it up. “This one wasn’t on the list.”

Steve didn’t know how to respond to that, so he said, “Eggs?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Robin took the plate he handed her and grabbed a fork from the table, along with a jelly doughnut, but she didn’t sit down. Instead, she poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter near the stove while she ate. “I have a good feeling about today.”

“Yeah?” Steve asked, breaking an egg into the pan and scrambling it up with his spatula. “It’s Saturday. You always like Saturdays.”

Shrugging, Robin insisted, “It’s a good day of the week. You know, in general.”

Joyce was the next to show up, squeezing Steve’s shoulder when he gave her some eggs. Robin poured her a cup of coffee. “Jim hasn’t called yet, has he?” she asked. 

Steve shook his head. “Not that I heard.”

“Damn.”

Lucas was next to come to the kitchen, followed quickly by Dustin and Will. Max, El and Mike stumbled in. And that was everyone. 

It wasn’t enough. Jonathan wasn’t there. Neither was Nancy, or Hop. Steve bit the inside of his cheek and focused on making eggs for everyone. He might not have superpowers, or be all that good at cooking, but at least he could do something to keep everyone fed and moving, up on their feet. Helping. 

As he finished cooking up the last few eggs, El came over to Steve and hugged him. “It’ll be okay,” she said softly. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

God, maybe she was just being stupid, and hopeful, and _fifteen_ about the situation, but Steve wanted more than anything to believe her. 

He’d managed to choke down most of his eggs and a chocolate eclair before the phone rang. He was sitting on the right end of the table to be able to reach up and lift down the phone without getting out of his seat. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” said Nancy, and Steve almost laughed with relief at hearing her voice. “Did you get my note?”

“Yeah,” he said, sighing. “Are you okay?”

“Hop and I are fine. We’ve been doing some digging. I have a lot more information, but I’ve gone through everything and I still don’t have an address.”

“The kids got us an address,” Steve told her, waving at Max, who was standing next to the pad of paper until she handed it over to him. “Where are you?”

“A motel outside Rockford,” she replied. “What’s the address?”

Steve read it off to her. 

After some murmuring on the other end of the line, she said, “Yeah, we’ll check it out. Call you back if it looks good.”

There was something about her voice that made Steve ask, “Did you sleep at all?”

Nancy laughed softly. “Maybe an hour. It was a busy night.”

“What did you do?”

Nancy paused for a second, and then said, “I don't want to get into it on the phone. I’ll tell you when I see you, okay?”

“Okay, babe,” he replied. Noticing the way Joyce was eyeing him, Steve added, “Pass the phone over to Hop? I think Mom wants to yell at him.”

Joyce made an indignant scoff, and Nancy laughed, saying, “Okay. Bye, Steve. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

In the shuffle after breakfast, Steve managed to wrangle himself a shower and a new set of clothes. Actually, they were Jonathan’s clothes. He’d left more of his stuff here when they’d moved to Chicago than Steve had. Luckily he tended to buy his pants long and his sweaters too big, because they fit Steve no problem. 

Steve looked down at Jonathan’s sweater and wondered who the hell he was going to share clothes with if they didn’t get Jonathan back. Nancy? Yeah, nothing she bought for herself would even remotely fit Steve. Obviously, he’d let her keep wearing his clothes when she wanted to, but it wasn’t the same. 

Before he left his room, the phone rang, so Steve picked up the extension next to his bed. “Hello?”

“Steve, it’s Jim,” was the reply. “Can you read me back that address you gave Nancy?”

Thinking he must have fucked it up somehow, Steve said, “Yeah, okay. Hang on.”

He went to the kitchen phone and read the address again. “Is something wrong?”

“There’s nothing at that address,” Hop told him. “It’s just a field around a water tower.”

“Shit,” Steve said. “Okay, let me get one of the kids.”

He found Will first, and pulled him over to the kitchen. Holding up the pad of paper, he asked Will, “Did I write this down wrong?”

Will looked at the address and shook his head. “No, that’s the same as what I saw.” 

Steve gave him the phone, saying, “Here, talk to Hop about it.”

All this waiting and worrying was driving him nuts. He found Robin and told her, “Let’s do something.”

“What?” she asked, looking over a bunch of her notes from the day before. 

Hugging himself, Steve said, “I don’t know. Anything. Take that list of addresses and just start knocking down doors.”

Robin frowned, then looked up as El came into the room. She asked El, “Hey, if we drive you close to these places, could you tell if Jonathan was inside or not?”

Still looking a little weak, El nodded. 

“Alright, we might be getting close to a plan,” Robin said, heading into the kitchen and taking the phone from Will. 

Steve went back to the kitchen and picked up a doughnut with sprinkles. Back in the living room, he offered it to El, asking, “Still your favorite?”

El nodded. “Thanks.”

Steve hugged her. “Anytime.”

~*~

When Nancy saw Steve’s car in the parking lot of the diner they’d agreed to meet at, she couldn’t help but give a sigh of relief. She noticed Hopper gave a similar sigh when Joyce’s station wagon pulled into the lot afterward. Robin's car followed third.

Turning to the hostess, Nancy said, “Hey, we’re going to need a table for twelve.” 

“Eleven,” Hopper said from behind her, and Nancy thought he meant his daughter, until he clarified, “We need a table for eleven people. We’re missing one today.”

Nancy’s chest clenched with pain. She’d counted Jonathan, hadn’t she? Damn it. Hop gave her a little bit of a hug, and it helped.

Steve came in and wrapped his arms around Nancy just as the hostess took them back to their seats. “What have you been up to?”

Whispering, Nancy told Steve, “Oh, you know. A little breaking and entering. A little kidnapping. Some larceny. Just your normal sort of Friday night.”

Steve laughed and tipped her chin up so he could kiss her. Speaking just as softly, he asked, “So, you ready to get our boyfriend back today?”

“More than ready,” Nancy insisted, giving Steve one more kiss before taking his hand and leading him back toward the table. 

They sat together, between Robin and Mike, and together they quietly ran down the plan. Robin, Joyce, and Hopper seemed to be the most on top of it when it came to strategy, but Nancy made sure to contribute, and Lucas was right in there, too. Mike made a few helpful suggestions, and Will weighed in on how much he and El could reasonably accomplish.

Steve just sat and listened, eating the hamburger Nancy ordered for him without complaint. He wasn’t his usual outgoing self, and Nancy recognized that he was wearing Jonathan’s clothes. She held Steve’s hand in her lap, tracing over the back of it with gentle fingers. He smiled sadly and squeezed her hand back. 

Jonathan’s absence felt like a gaping hole in the floor that Nancy kept trying not to notice, but kept falling into time and time again. Each and every time it hurt.

After lunch, they split up, making sure each car had a radio. It felt like the start of something big, and Nancy hoped like hell she wasn’t going to be disappointed.


	17. Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jonathan's family lays siege to the facility keeping him prisoner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go! The beginning of the end!

As he really started coming off the sedatives, Jonathan noticed the way his muscles shook. They trembled so badly that Jonathan could barely use his free hand to unbuckle the restraint on his other wrist. He got his ankles free with a lot of difficulty, and then he decided to rest for a bit before pulling the catheter out of his bladder. 

Once that unpleasant business was done, he was completely free of any restraints or tubing. Jonathan pulled the blanket closer around himself and shivered. It seemed like it was never going to end, even though he knew it was just his muscles getting used to listening to his brain again, instead of the drug. It started to hurt. 

A lot of the pain was still above his left eye, with an occasional drop of blood dripping from his left nostril. Some of the pain was in the large muscles of his arms and his legs. The rest of the pain was more familiar. As the drug wore off, Jonathan realized that his shield was gone. He was wide open to anyone. 

And there were a _lot_ of people around. 

Jonathan tried to count how many minds he could sense, but it took too much out of him. He needed to be able to fight back the next time they came into his room. So he focused his energy on rebuilding the shield he was going to need. The bright lights of his room were a little distracting, but it was quiet, and Jonathan was able to block out everything except focusing on his shield. He built it the way El had showed him, starting out with the Upside Down stuff, fortifying it with his programmed word, putting the love he felt for Steve and Nancy behind everything to lock it in place.

Oh, god. That was so much better. Jonathan could finally think clearly. His muscles stopped trembling as well, and he stretched his legs and arms, getting ready to move.

Without all the distraction, it was easy to contact El, even without dropping into the Inbetween. _I'm ready to go_ , he told her.

_We're getting close_ , she replied. _I can tell. It's getting easier to find you._

Hearing a noise at the door, Jonathan made sure it looked like he was still restrained. He told El, _Hurry_. And then he showed her how he'd found Steve again after he'd stormed out of the apartment.

_Good idea_ , she replied. _We're coming for you._

Jonathan left his eyes open just wide enough to see as two people came into the room. They were both wearing surgical outfits, with gowns, masks, hats, and gloves. One of them pushed a rolling cart into the room, and the things on it clattered like they were made of metal.

"... good that the preliminary test results came back negative," the shorter one said. "That capture we got a few weeks ago is finally ready. The director thinks we might be really successful if we use this one's sample on her."

"I can see why. They're both bleeders," said the taller one. "You know what good results we had with that one pair two years ago."

"Oh, that scary blonde one? Subject C12?" The first one picked up a loaded syringe and approached Jonathan's IV, injecting it into the line. "We had to collect him unconscious, too. Word around the office is that when they woke him up, he made Johnson shoot himself in the leg."

Jonathan wondered if they were talking about Nine. He certainly fit the description.

"Who knows what this one was trying to do last night? I heard he bled so much, Wendy got sick," said the second. He picked up a few things from the tray. "Hopefully that means his sample will be as successful as C12's."

Jonathan called out to Eleven again. _Are you close? I'm running out of time._

_Not close enough_ , she replied. _You're going to have to fight._

Shit. 

Okay. 

The taller one approached Jonathan and gestured to the shorter one. "Get him uncovered, would you?"

Jonathan waited until the shorter one was close enough, and then _pushed_ him at the same moment he sat up and punched the taller one in the face. He jumped out of bed and hit the taller one again, knocking him against the wall. He slumped down and didn't get up. 

Jonathan felt the shorter one go around the bed and rush at him, so he ducked out of his grasp. He _pushed_ again and got the short one into the bed. Holding him down, half with his body and half with his mind, Jonathan got the restraints around the man's wrists and then around his ankles.

Breathing heavily, Jonathan wiped the wet blood from under his nose and glared at the man in the bed. "You don't get to touch me anymore."

"Jesus Christ! Don't hurt me!" he cried, pulling on the restraints. "I'm just doing my job!"

"And I was just trying to live my life," Jonathan sneered. He looked around, trying to come up with a plan. A few seconds later, he had it. He went over to the taller guy and stripped off his scrubs and his shoes, pulling them on himself instead. 

The shorter guy on the bed watched for a second before asking, “Did you kill him?”

“He’s still breathing,” Jonathan said. “For now.”

Looking around the room for something to restrain the taller guy, the best thing Jonathan came up with was taking one of the sheets off the bed and tearing off strips. He braided them together to make a better rope and tied the tall guy’s wrists behind him. 

“There’s no way you’re getting out of here,” said the short one as Jonathan put on the surgical mask and tucked his hair under the tall guy’s hat. 

“No?” Jonathan asked him. “That scary guy you were talking about? C12? Could make people do what he wanted?”

The short guy nodded, his eyes wide as Jonathan ripped another piece of cloth from the bedsheet. 

He shoved it into the short guy’s mouth, telling him, “I killed that bastard. So, if your people know what’s good for them, they’ll let me go. And they won’t try to find me again.”

Jonathan left the room, locking the door behind him. The hallway was lit with fluorescent lights and lined with doors just like the one he’d come from. As he walked down the hallway toward the end, Jonathan felt that there were people behind most of the doors. Their emotions were fuzzy, out of focus, and Jonathan realized they had to be drugged, like he had been.

And then, coming from somewhere below him, Jonathan heard a voice in his head.

_Help me_?

~*~

Nancy sat beside Steve in his car, looking out over the field surrounding the water tower and frowning. Holding down the button on Dustin's radio, Nancy asked, "Are you sure this is it?"

It was Will's voice that replied from the other car, "Yeah. This is it. He's here."

Turning in her seat, Nancy asked Robin, "What do you think? How are we supposed to get into a building we can't see?"

"I mean, it's not invisible," Dustin said from beside Robin. "I bet it's _under_ the field."

"Yeah, but how do we get in?" Steve asked.

Robin pointed out, "And how do we know what we're up against when we do get in?"

"It doesn't matter," Nancy told them, patting the gun she still had on her hip. "All that matters is that Jonathan's in there and we need to get him out."

"Guys," Steve said, grabbing the radio from Nancy's hand and speaking into it. "Does anyone else see that grandpa-looking dude walking toward that little shed building?"

"Yeah, we see him," Hopper replied, and Nancy watched as the man took a key out of his pocket, put it in the door, and went inside. 

"That has to be it, right?" Nancy asked the others. "The way in."

Making a displeased noise, Robin grabbed the radio and said to the others, "That building is so small. I bet it's just the entryway. We can't let ourselves get trapped in a bottleneck. If there are any guards, we have to draw them out somehow. Otherwise we'll get creamed."

"I got it," Lucas said from the other car.

Before anyone could stop him, Lucas was sprinting across the frosty grass, something in his hand. He crouched down next to the door of the shed, left something there, and backed up. A few seconds later, there was a loud cracking noise, and Lucas gave a whoop of excitement. Before too long, a guard came through the door, chasing after Lucas as he sprinted back toward the cars. 

Nancy watched as Lucas ran right past the station wagon, leading the guard directly into it when Hopper suddenly opened his car door, knocking down the guard. Nancy told the others in her car, "C'mon."

She got out, and Robin was right at her shoulder as they walked away from their car, approaching the little building from the other side. Hopper made a big deal about apologizing to the guard, causing a distraction Nancy and her group could use. When a second guard came out of the building to check on the first, he didn't see them pressed to the wall just around the corner. As the guard walked away, Robin darted over and caught the door before it could close.

Taking her gun from its holster, Nancy led the way through the door, letting Robin bring up the rear. The building was barely big enough for the stairwell that led downward. Before Steve could go down the stairs, Nancy held him back. "Let's hold here," she said, getting down on her stomach, ready to shoot anyone else who came up the stairs. "Keep that door closed until the others make it over here."

"Got it," Steve said, taking over the door from Robin, setting his back against the door and bracing his legs against the metal railing around the stairwell. Dustin joined him, while Robin pulled out her own weapon and copied Nancy.

Calling down the stairs, Robin said, "Federal agent! Anyone who's down there, I need you to surrender!"

There was a loud thump at the bottom of the stairs, but when Nancy looked over the railing, she couldn't see anything.

A sharp knock on the door behind her drew Nancy's attention. Steve looked braced to hold back the door, but Hopper's voice bellowed from the other side, "It's us! Open up!"

Nancy returned her attention to whatever had made the noise, aiming her gun so she was ready for any possible assailant. 

Behind her, El said, "It's clear. We can go down. Jonathan needs us."

Hopper led the way, but Robin and Nancy were right behind him, taking the stairs as quickly as possible. Nancy noticed Steve just half a flight behind her, and he was unarmed, but ready to throw himself into the fight for Jonathan's sake.

God, she loved him.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was a guard slumped against the wall opposite from the open door, his head having left a trail of blood down the wall from where he'd slammed into it. In the open door knelt a figure in green doctor's scrubs, his face covered with a bloody surgical mask, but his eyes achingly familiar. In his arms, he held a trembling school-aged girl, who looked at them with wide, terrified eyes.

"Drop the girl," Hopper ordered, bringing up his gun.

"No!" Nancy shouted, putting herself between Hopper and Jonathan. She dropped to her knees in front of Jonathan, stowing her gun in its holster and reaching forward to pull down the mask. Jonathan's face was pale, and covered in blood, the small blood vessels on his cheeks and under his eyes were dark. It reminded Nancy of how El had looked back when she was trying to find Will in the Upside Down. "Jonathan," she said, brushing her hand against his cheek.

"Get her out of here," Jonathan said, his voice hoarse as he pushed the girl over to Nancy. 

Steve dropped to his knees next to them, giving a little sob as he threw his arms around Jonathan, practically knocking him over. "Baby!"

"Other guards … coming," Jonathan breathed, nodding back over his shoulder. "Move."

The little girl reached for Jonathan, but Hopper yelled, "Get down!" and Nancy just managed to pull her out of the doorway before a bullet zinged past them. Steve pulled on Jonathan, getting him behind cover next to Nancy. Hopper and Robin hid behind the other side of the doorway.

Looking up the staircase, Nancy saw El and Will walking down them, hand-in-hand, Mike and Joyce just behind. "Watch out!" she called up to them. A bullet hit the cement wall on the far side of the staircase. Nancy curled her body around the little girl, protecting her from the bullets as best she could. 

Suddenly, the bullets stopped. "They're gone," El said, moving through the doorway with Will, their free hands held out ahead of them, ready to act.

Nancy stood up, watching, and noticed when the little girl moved away from her. Steve picked her up, saying, "It's okay, kiddo. We're all Jonathan's friends. We'll protect you."

Still trembling, the girl nodded.

Caught between wanting to move forward with Hopper and Eleven, and staying back to make sure Jonathan was okay, Nancy waited until Dustin and Mike picked Jonathan up. They headed for the stairs, Joyce, Steve and the little girl with them, so Nancy ran to catch up with the others. "What are we looking for?" she asked, turning the corner and noticing the dead bodies littering the hallway. 

Had Jonathan done _all this_?

Speaking in creepy unison as they kept walking forward, Will and El told her, "There's a friend here."

At the end of the hallway of bodies, there was an open elevator. "I don't like the look of this," Nancy told the others as Will and El boarded it.

"Yeah, I don't either," Hopper said, following his kids onto the elevator. 

Nancy shared a look with Robin before following them. They pressed up against the left side of the elevator, near the door. Hopper and the kids did the same on the right. The button for Floor -3 lit up as if it had been pressed, and the doors slid shut.

~*~

Steve held onto the girl, carrying her up the stairs behind Jonathan, Dustin and Mike. She shook in his arms, her skinny little hands clasped behind his neck, and Steve couldn't stand it. Joyce gave him a sympathetic look, but turned most of her attention on Jonathan. Steve rubbed the girl's back and said softly, "I'm Jonathan's friend, Steve. What's your name, kiddo?"

"Gen one-oh-oh-one," she whispered, burying her face in Steve's neck. "Teacher calls me Jenny one."

"Jenny," Steve repeated, putting out a hand to stabilize Jonathan when he slipped a little. "It's nice to meet you."

She took her head out of Steve's neck and looked up. "There are others coming."

Looking up to the top of the staircase, all Steve could see was Max standing at the top and Lucas coming down the stairs.

"Yeah, there are," Jonathan said roughly. "Max, watch out!"

Lucas changed direction, getting up to the top of the stairs just in time to help Max keep the door shut as someone slammed against it.

That's when Steve got it. "Oh," he said to Jenny, holding her close as he pressed against the side of the stairwell to keep her safe. Sharing a look with Joyce, he told Jenny, "You're like Jonathan."

The door above them banged again.

Steve called back down the stairwell, "We got company! Big old bottleneck forming here!"

"They just need another minute," Jonathan insisted, leaning back against the wall and panting. Steve got the distinct impression that if it hadn't been for Mike and Dustin, he'd already be on the floor.

Another bang from above made Max shriek, and Steve couldn't just sit there. He set Jenny down in front of Joyce and grabbed Mike by the arm. "Come on, they need us."

Dustin came up the stairs with them, too, and Steve looked back to see Jonathan sitting on the floor with Jenny in his lap, holding tightly onto her while Joyce hovered over them, her hands on Jonathan like she needed the reassurance he was alive and there. Steve knew the feeling.

He made it to the door, taking over from Max just as her legs gave out. Mike joined him and Lucas at the door, holding it shut as people on the other side banged and pushed. Then they began a concerted effort, at least of them striking the door at the same time. Mike hissed in Steve's ear, "Let go in…" Hit! "Three." Hit! "Two!"

Steve didn't know what Mike was up to, but he trusted Nancy's brother. As the last hit was about to strike, Steve got Lucas out of the way and Mike opened the door. Two big guys barrelled through and ran into the stairwell railing full speed. One of them toppled over right away, screaming as he fell down the staircase, but the second needed a concerted push from Mike and Steve to go over and fall. Behind them, Lucas and Dustin got the door closed again. No one else ran into it.

"Stay here," Steve told the others, flying back down the steps. One of the guards was hanging by one hand on the edge of the stairwell, his face already bloody from where he must have hit on the way down. Steve gave his hand a hard kick, wincing at the feeling of bone crushing. The guard screamed and fell the rest of the way down. 

Not bothering to spend another second thinking about an enemy, Steve made it back to Joyce, Jonathan, and Jenny. "Is that it?" he asked Jonathan, scooping up Jenny when she reached for him. "Is that all of them?"

Jonathan blinked heavily and shook his head. "I don't know. I can't…"

"Shh," Steve told him, ducking down to press a kiss to Jonathan's temple. "It's okay. Don't push too hard, baby."

Nodding, Jonathan reached up for Joyce's hand, and then Steve's. "Get us out of here."

"Gladly," Steve insisted, helping Jonathan to his feet. Mike reached them before they tried the first step. He got his shoulders under Jonathan's arm and took most of his weight.

Joyce took the rest of Jonathan's weight, murmuring to him, "That's it, baby. You're doing good. Just a little bit farther."

Steve found himself surprised by how big and strong Mike had gotten, and he wondered if his friendship with Robin had anything to do with it. It wouldn't surprise him if Robin had prodded Mike and the others into some sort of monster-hunting obstacle-course training on the weekends. If Mike had been missing Eleven anything like how Steve had missed Nancy the year before, he probably would have jumped at the opportunity to keep busy.

As they reached the top, Steve looked down the stairwell. "What the hell are Nancy and the others walking into down there?" he asked.

~*~

**20 minutes prior**

_Help me_?

The cry was so plaintive and so innocent that Jonathan couldn't ignore it. He found a stairwell and looked into it, noticing that he was on something called Level -3. The exit was up.

Jonathan went down the stairs. 

_Where are you?_ Jonathan asked the voice, stopping at the next level down. _Are you in here?_

_No,_ it replied, and Jonathan got the impression the speaker was really young. And probably female.

He went another floor down, and reached the bottom of the staircase. There was a door there, and Jonathan pressed his ear to it, trying to determine whether he was going to run into someone he would need to fight. He didn't hear anyone. He felt a few people, but none of them seemed very close to the source of the voice. _Are you down here all alone_?

_I don't know_.

Jonathan carefully opened the door. Beyond, he saw a hallway like the one he'd been locked up in. The only differences were a few large windows lining the walls on the way to the doors lining the hallway near the end. There was an elevator at that end of the hallway, and Jonathan got a bad feeling about it.

Still, he crept into the hallway. He stopped at the first window, getting low to the ground and peeking over the side. The light in the room was pleasantly bright, and Jonathan almost swore when he saw what was inside. It was a large room, full of bright colors and toys, cribs, and at least five or six babies of different ages. There were two adults in the room, both women who looked like they were taking care of the babies.

Jonathan couldn't help but wonder where all the babies had come from. Had they been kidnapped like he'd been?

He crawled below the window, and got to the next one. Looking in this one, he saw slightly older kids. Toddlers. The third window had kids who were even older.

There had to be at least twenty of them altogether. 

And then Jonathan reached the right door. It was locked. _Do you know where the key is?_

_Teacher has it_.

Jonathan closed his eyes. He didn't have the time to dick around looking for some teacher who might have a key. He'd seen El open locked doors before. And actually, he felt El getting really close. He closed his eyes and reached out to her. _How do I get this open_?

El tried to show him, but Jonathan couldn't quite make sense out of it. He leaned on Will. _Translate_?

After Will showed him what to do, Jonathan popped the lock open. On the other side of the door, he found a kid's bedroom. It wasn't as sparse or as dull as he had imagined it would be. The blankets on the bed were bright pink and yellow. There were crayon drawings all over the walls. In one corner, there sat a little girl with dark eyes and dark brown hair. She wasn't as pale as El, but god did she remind him of her. 

"Are you coming with?"

She nodded, standing up and running over to Jonathan. She put her hand in his and said, "We need to go."

"What about the others?" Jonathan asked, angling his head toward the windowed rooms down the hall. He thought this girl looked older than any of the other children. He couldn't quite remember what Will looked like when he started elementary school, but it was probably something like this. He guessed kindergarten aged, maybe first grade.

Frowning down the hallway, the girl said, "Teacher still likes them."

Jonathan crouched down, about to ask what she meant by that, when a loud alarm went off. The girl startled, pulling on Jonathan's hand. They must have found out that he wasn't where he was supposed to be.

"This way," the girl said, pulling Jonathan toward the elevator. "No," he told her. "The stairs."

Looking down the hallway, she said, "There are so many of them over there. Can you feel it?"

Letting in the emotions around him, Jonathan realized that she was right. There were a lot of angry, scared, determined people coming down the stairs. "Let's go," he told the girl, running over to the elevator and pressing the button. 

The doors didn't open right away, but he heard the elevator moving. "Come on," he said, looking back down the hallway and feeling it when the people coming hit the bottom floor. He put the girl behind him as the door opened.

Several big orderlies and guards came through the door and Jonathan was relieved to see that it didn't look like they had guns. But there were so many of them. How was he supposed to protect the girl from all of them?

The elevator door opened with a ding, and Jonathan was dismayed to realize there were two men in the elevator as well. With a yell, he _threw_ the first one. It made the point above his left eye throb painfully, but the man flew down the hallway, skidding to a stop at the feet of the others coming for him.

The second man grabbed the girl, making her scream. 

Needing to protect her, to get her _out_ of this hellhole, Jonathan grabbed the man's wrist. Then, as easy as breathing, Will gave Jonathan the answer. He did as Will showed him and broke the man's neck, making him fall to the elevator floor like a lifeless dummy. 

Jonathan pushed the girl further into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor. The doors of the elevator started closing, but the three men at the end of the hall were getting so close. If he didn't do something, and quick, they were going to catch him. They were going to tie him up again and collect their suspicious samples, and keep him feeling drugged and disconnected, and Jonathan couldn't stand that.

He put out his hand and _pushed_.

The pain made Jonathan cry out, his head throbbing and his nose running – with blood, he realized. Still, the elevator doors closed and they started moving upward.

"You're hurt," the girl said, pressing herself to Jonathan's side. In a quiet voice, she told him, "They don't like it when we use our abilities."

"Sounds like a good reason to use them to me," Jonathan told her, taking deep breaths to work through the pain. "Don't worry. My brother and sister are coming for us. We're getting out of here."

"I can feel them," she said with a deep shudder. "She's so _big_."

Jonathan laughed a little, because yeah. El did feel like a giant in his head. "She's a lot smaller in person."

As the elevator moved up to the top floor, the girl gasped. Jonathan was about to ask her what was wrong, but then he felt it, too. There was someone waiting for them just on the other side of the elevator doors. Lots of someones.

"C'mere," Jonathan insisted, pulling the girl close and picking her up. "Don't look," he insisted. 

When the doors opened, Jonathan started running. He broke necks as he ran, holding the girl's head close to him so she wouldn't have to see it happening. He just had to make it to the other end of the hallway and around the corner. That's where his family was. He just had to make it to them.

His head was killing him and his strength started to go out. He was close now, he could feel it. His siblings were almost there. Just one more person stood in the way. Looking around the corner, he saw a guard at the end of the short hallway, his gun out. Just beyond him were the stairs going up. The exit. Using the last of his strength, Jonathan pushed the guard as he turned the corner, bashing the guard's head into the concrete wall. Heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs, and Jonathan knew that meant he was done. He was rescued. He'd made it.

Jonathan staggered forward to the doorway, his legs collapsing under him as he looked up, and they were there. His family.

Hopper pointed his gun and made a demand that Jonathan just couldn't understand, but Nancy knew him. Nancy took the mask from Jonathan's face and touched his cheek and _loved_ him.

_Behind us_ , Jonathan heard the girl say, and yeah. She was right. They had to leave. Jonathan couldn't protect her anymore. He said something to Steve, but Will and El knew what needed to be done.

They had it covered. Jonathan didn't have to fight anymore, which was good because he was pretty sure he couldn't fight. Not anymore. Not today.


	18. Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crew escapes the facility, rescuing Jonathan and friends, both new and old.

When the elevator door opened, someone called in, "Surrender or we _will_ shoot."

Nancy watched Hopper put his hand on the door to keep it from closing, and then give El a look. She nodded with a slight smile and someone beyond the elevator screamed.

" _You_ surrender, or we send more of your friends to hell," Hopper called out. 

When no one was forthcoming with a surrender, Robin called, "Federal Agents! Put down your weapons right now!"

Hopper peeked around the corner, and a bullet whizzed by, missing him and embedding in the back wall of the elevator. Hopper called out, "Can't say we didn't warn you!" Then he gave El a nod, but held up a finger and said quietly, "Leave one."

El nodded back. There was a soft sound, almost like wind whipping around a corner, and another shriek. 

Then a voice called out, "Okay! Okay! I surrender!"

Hopper held his gun up as he peeked around the corner again. Then he moved forward down the hallway. Nancy followed him, her gun in her hands, but kept the barrel down so it was never pointed at Hopper. When Hopper peeled off to check out one of the open side rooms, Nancy took the one across the hall. Robin went straight, directly toward the surviving guard. Nancy quickly swept the room (it looked like a medical storage room) for enemies the way Hopper had taught her, and when no one was there, she came back to the main hallway, telling him, "Clear."

Hop nodded before angling his head back toward the room he'd just checked. "Clear."

There were two more open rooms, both of them empty, before they started coming across locked doors. Nancy tried each of the doors, but one after the other, they were locked. Hop grabbed the remaining guard from Robin and handcuffed him, putting him ahead of them as they walked. About halfway down, El stopped them. "This one," she said, pointing to the door Nancy had just checked.

El looked at the door for a moment, and then it came open. The room beyond had a hospital bed in the middle, and there was a girl lying unconscious in the bed. She had dark skin and dark hair, and the way El approached her made Nancy ask, "Do you know her?"

Nodding, El looked back and told them, "This is Eight. Kali."

"Oh, Jesus," Hopper sighed. "I suppose we're taking her with us?"

"Yes," El insisted. "Will, help me get everything disconnected."

While they were doing that, Nancy heard Robin call, "Hey! Over here!"

Nancy headed over, finding Robin with in one of the unlocked rooms Hopper had cleared. It was an office, and Robin was pulling files out of one of the cabinets. 

"What did you find?" Nancy asked, keeping half of her attention on the hallway outside the room. 

"More like what _didn't_ I find," Robin said. "There's expense ledgers here. Incorporation papers. Tax filings. And _inventory_."

"Why did you say inventory like that?" Nancy asked her.

Robin brought one of the folders over to Nancy and read aloud from it, "C19, Female, 27 years old, captured in Canton, Ohio. Six weeks gestation."

Not believing her ears, Nancy pulled the sheet closer and read the next line, "S37, Male, 21 years old, recruited at alpha site, three successful sample acquisitions." She frowned at Robin. "This can't be what it sounds like, can it?"

"It's people," Robin insisted. "Their product is _people_."

"Not just any people," Hopper said from out in the hallway. "People like El."

Nancy shook her head in disbelief, picking up the next piece of paper from Robin's folder. "This is an invoice, ahead of delivery of an _'asset'_ , scheduled for two weeks from now." Shaking with fury, Nancy said, "We have to find out who is responsible for this!"

"We will," Robin said, picking up a phone from the desk. She dialled a bunch of numbers, said, "Unsecure line," and then recited the address of the facility. She finished off her message by saying, "Site not yet secure. Requesting the cavalry, ma'am." After a short pause, Robin said, "Thanks. I'll be waiting."

To Nancy, she said, "You should get Jonathan and the kids out of here. I don't know how well I can protect them from the Chicago-based FBI. They don't know the specifics like the guys I work with over in Hawkins."

"Sure thing," Nancy replied, turning to Hop. "You carry El's friend, I'll take point?"

Hop nodded. "Let's go."

Nancy noticed the way both the kids looked pale and unfocused as they helped Hop wrap Kali in blankets and get her picked up. She told them, "Stay close behind me. We're moving as quickly as we can."

As they passed Robin, Nancy called out, "We're leaving! Watch your back!"

"Same to you," she said, stepping out of the office and pressing a bunch of folders into Will's arms. "Don't tell anyone I gave you this, but we can't let them cover this up. People need to know."

Nancy gave Robin a serious nod, telling her, "They will. I'll make sure of it." She didn't stop herself from giving Robin a quick, kind of emotional hug.

Robin chuckled and said, "Get out of here."

Nancy nodded, making sure her gun was ready, and the others were behind her. "Time to move."

~*~

As the others came up the stairs from below, Steve asked Nancy, "What happened to Robin? Is she okay?"

"She's staying to interface with the Feds," Nancy told him, touching Jonathan's arm briefly before looking out the door. "She'll be fine." After a second, she said, "Okay, everyone. We're making a break for the cars. I want to be out of the area in under two minutes. Does everyone understand?"

A chorus of yeses filled the little entryway to the facility. 

Nancy nodded and spoke again. "Listen up! Joyce and Hop will take Kali, Will, El, Max, Lucas, and Dustin. Sorry, it's going to be a bit of a squeeze. Steve and I will take Jonathan, Mike, and the girl. Run directly to your car and get in. We don't have time to mess this up."

God, Steve loved it when she took charge like this. 

Hop said, "Back to the motel," and Nancy nodded.

She peeked out the door again, looked around, and then said, "Okay, let's go."

Steve held Jenny close as he followed everyone through the door. He wasn't used to running with someone in his arms, but she was strong and held on tight, so it wasn't as difficult as he was expecting. Nancy and Mike helped Jonathan move, and they were right behind him when Steve unlocked his car. He set Jenny in the seat behind his, buckling her in and telling her, "It's gonna be okay."

Then he got into his seat, buckled in as he started the engine, and just barely waited for Nancy and Mike to close their doors before he pulled out into traffic. "Gotta give me directions, Nance," he told her, watching in his rearview as Joyce pulled out behind him. 

"Go this way for a bit," Nancy told him. "I want to make sure we're okay, and not being followed. I stashed a bunch of evidence at the motel and I don't want to lead the wrong people to it. 

Steve nodded. "Got it." 

As he drove, he tried to blend into traffic. He stopped nicely at a red light, and cringed when he heard sirens approaching. 

"Just be cool," Nancy insisted, putting her hand on Steve's.

He assured her, "I'm cool. Is everyone else cool?"

"Never cooler," Jonathan replied with a wet-sounding cough. Steve looked at him in the rear view mirror for so long, he almost missed the wailing cop cars sail right past them, heading back toward the water tower.

When the cops had all passed by and the light turned green, Steve followed the traffic. He said over his shoulder, "I don't think I'm ever letting you out of my sight again, Jonathan." He sniffled and blinked away a tear, focusing on driving as normally as possible.

Turning in her seat, Nancy said, "You had us really worried."

"Really worried," Mike insisted, nudging Jonathan's shoulder. Steve caught in the mirror the way Jonathan gave them both a tired smile.

Then Nancy addressed the little girl behind Steve, telling her, "Hi, I'm Nancy."

"Jonathan likes you," Jenny said, making Jonathan laugh softly. "Where are you guys taking me?"

"Somewhere safe," Nancy assured her. 

Steve heard Jonathan move a little, and then Jenny said, "Oh, yes. I want to go there. It seems nice."

"Go where?" Mike asked. 

"Mom's house," Jonathan told them. "Home."

That sounded so good, Steve could barely stand it. He couldn't wait to get Jonathan back to their room, and just wrap him up in their bed, and just hold him and Nancy there for as long as they would let him.

Breaking him out of his daydream, Nancy touched Steve's shoulder and pointed. "Let's go left there." 

"Got it." 

After fifteen minutes of driving an odd zigzagging pattern, Nancy was convinced that the only car following them was Joyce's. They stopped by the diner, Hop and Dustin moving over to his truck, before continuing on to the motel.

"We need to regroup," Nancy said with a sigh as Steve parked in front of room 105. "Clean up a bit before we head home. Let's go in."

"Sure," Steve replied. He opened Jenny's door and helped her undo her seat belt buckle. Noticing just now that she wasn't wearing any shoes, Steve told her, "Come on up. I'll carry you in."

She put her arms around his neck and let him pick her up, cuddling close to him as the December wind gusted around them. "We should get some clothes, and shoes, and coats and stuff," Steve said to Nancy as he locked the car and then followed her into the motel room, Mike and Jonathan right behind him. "For all three of them."

Nancy nodded. "Yeah. Okay. I’ve got it covered.”

Nancy ended up taking Steve’s keys, and Max and Lucas, to go do some quick shopping before the stores closed. The others laid Kali out on one of the beds, El sitting with her and holding her hand. After a couple minutes, Jenny joined them, asking El soft questions now and again. 

Hopper, Joyce, Will, and Dustin sat around the table, looking through the files they’d taken from the facility. Joyce mentioned trying to figure out if they had the paperwork regarding who Jenny’s mother and father might be. 

And Steve? He wrapped himself around Jonathan and didn’t let go. Jonathan dozed for awhile, and Steve just laid with him, opening his eyes and staring at Jonathan’s profile when he needed to. 

Kali had just started to come around off the sedatives when Nancy got back from the store. She gave Steve a bag full of Jonathan-looking clothes and said, “Help him get cleaned up, would you?”

“I _can_ hear you,” Jonathan said, but he pulled Nancy close enough to give her a kiss on the cheek before following Steve into the bathroom.

“Shower or bath?” Steve asked, capturing Jonathan’s face between his hands and just holding him there, close enough that Steve could remind himself what Jonathan’s eyes looked like, like he would ever forget. 

Jonathan put his hands on Steve’s wrists and looked up at him. “Shower,” he insisted, “but my legs are really tired. I don’t think they fed me at all. I might need help.”

“I’ll help,” Steve insisted, kissing Jonathan and setting him down on the closed toilet lid. He started the shower, then cracked open the bathroom door. “Someone do a food run, huh?”

“On it!” Lucas called back. Steve got a bad feeling that someone out there was about to let Max drive his car. Oh, well. He had bigger things to worry about.

Putting his head back in the bathroom, Steve closed and locked the door. He stripped off his clothes, smiling as Jonathan watched him, and set them aside. He knelt in front of Jonathan and helped him first take off the scrubs shirt he was wearing. Without it, Steve noticed details he’d missed earlier. Jonathan’s wrists were bruised. His right arm had a bruised needle mark, and gummy tape residue surrounding it. 

Making a displeased noise, Steve kissed the inside of Jonathan’s elbow, right over the mark. When he looked up, Jonathan was crying. “Babe,” Steve said softly, pulling him into a hug. “Was it that bad?”

Taking a shuddering breath, Jonathan nodded his head. “It was bad, Steve. It was…” His breath hitched. “A couple of the times I was coming out of it, they made me think either you or Nancy were there. I told them things…”

“What kind of things?”

“Secret things,” Jonathan insisted, wiping his face. “About us.”

“About us?”

Jonathan nodded, looking away from him. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Steve insisted, standing up and helping Jonathan to his feet, too. “When those Russians dosed me the summer before last, I totally gave up Dustin’s full name. His address too, I think.”

Jonathan laughed and nodded. 

When Steve reached for the ties holding Jonathan’s pants up, Jonathan flinched away. 

“Sorry,” Jonathan said, taking a deep breath. 

Steve put his hands back up on Jonathan’s shoulders. “Maybe you should be the one to undo those.”

Jonathan nodded, resting his forehead against Steve’s shoulder and looking down as he undid the knot and let the pants fall to the ground. He was still wearing his own pair of boxers underneath, which Steve found oddly comforting. 

_Actually_ … Steve chuckled. “You’re wearing mine.”

Looking down, Jonathan laughed a little too. “Do you mind?”

“No,” Steve insisted, giving Jonathan a quick kiss. “I don’t mind. I like it when you wear my clothes.”

Dropping the underwear to the ground, Jonathan confessed, “I lost your basketball sweatshirt. I don’t know what happened to the bag they made me pack.”

Steve could see Jonathan start to get worked up about it, so he kissed Jonathan’s stubbled jaw and insisted, “It’s just a sweatshirt. I’m much happier to have you back, babe.”

Jonathan nodded, still looking a little guilty. He looked over at the shower and said, “Let’s get in. I need… I need…”

“Yeah,” Steve assured him, sticking an arm in and then adjusting the temperature a little. “Let’s wash that place off of you.”

He helped Jonathan get in the tub and kept a hold on him as he stepped under the spray. The first thing Steve did was grab a washcloth from the pile of towels and get it wet, gently wiping Jonathan’s face clean. Then, Jonathan got his hair wet and Steve found the little bottle of hotel shampoo, opening it and putting some in his hands. He worked the shampoo through Jonathan’s hair, pausing when Jonathan whispered softly.

“I don’t remember everything that– everything that– that _happened_. I think someone might have touched me.” He looked so lost, Steve couldn’t stand it. 

He unwrapped the bar of soap and handed it to Jonathan, telling him, “Whatever they did to you, it’s not your fault.” Steve turned Jonathan around and backed him under the spray, washing the suds out of his hair. 

Steve let Jonathan wash his own body with the provided bar of soap, just standing there with him, ready to catch him if he started to slip. When Jonathan handed back the bar of soap, Steve noticed that he was trembling. “Let’s get you out before you fall over,” Steve insisted, grasping Jonathan’s hand with his own.

Jonathan squeezed Steve’s hand and turned off the water, letting Steve help him over the edge of the tub and wrap him in a towel. “I think it’s withdrawal,” Jonathan said, sitting down on the toilet lid and holding out his shaking hand. “The shakiness was really bad when I first stopped letting them…” Jonathan shook his head. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Steve insisted. He opened the bag Nancy had given him and took out a package of underwear. After unwrapping them, he knelt down in front of Jonathan and helped get his shaking feet through the leg holes. 

Once those were on, Jonathan nodded to the pile of clothes Steve had left on the floor. “Those are mine.”

“They were at the house,” Steve told him. “Do you mind that I was wearing them?”

Jonathan shook his head. “But, can I wear them now? I want to smell more like home. Less like that place.”

“Sure, of course,” Steve told him, grabbing the undershirt and sweater and putting them on Jonathan. Then he got the jeans on Jonathan, and the socks. Looking down to the bottom of the bag, Steve found a box of shoes. They were cheap-looking white sneakers, but they were Jonathan’s size. They would definitely fit Jonathan better than Steve’s two-sizes-too-big shoes. 

Since Jonathan was now wearing the clothes Steve had come into the bathroom wearing, he dug through the bag again. Soon enough, he was wearing stuff that fit decently. He held his arms out and asked, “What do you think?”

Jonathan smiled. “Good,” he insisted, pulling Steve closer and hugging his belly. “Help me up?”

“Sure.”

Steve pulled Jonathan to his feet and helped him leave the bathroom. As soon as he opened the door, it was apparent that the food had arrived. Steve sat Jonathan on the bed and let Joyce hug Jonathan and press food into his hands. 

Steve gathered up the rest of the stuff from the bathroom, including the bloody scrubs Jonathan had been wearing. “What should I do with these?” Steve asked her. 

“We’ll take them with us,” Nancy told him, pulling Steve close. “Burn them or something.” She took them out of Steve’s hands, set them aside, and gave Steve a wrapped-up cheeseburger. “Eat that, would you?”

Steve took the sandwich and nodded. After eating for a bit, Steve told Nancy, “I want to go back to the apartment. Actually pack a bag for once. Get Jonathan's camera for him.”

Nodding, Nancy told him, “Take Hop with you. Just in case.”

Hopper drove, and it was at least an hour before Steve could admit, “Something bad happened to him there. Like, something _really_ bad.”

“I know,” Hop replied, his eyes on the traffic ahead of them. 

“I don’t know what to do about it.”

Hop gave a deep sigh, before saying, “I’m not sure there’s anything that _can_ be done about it.”

“Fantastic.” Steve sighed too.

~*~

For having spent the past two days mostly asleep, Jonathan found it hard to keep his eyes open while they waited for Steve and Hopper to return. He rested his head in Nancy's lap and let her pet her hands through his hair as she read through the files they'd taken from the facility. At one point he noticed Will sleeping next to them, and figured he probably deserved the rest after everything he'd done for Jonathan.

There was a little bit of a commotion when El's friend finished waking up, but Jonathan missed most of it. He was still sleeping when Steve murmured in his ear, "Wake up, baby. It's time to go home."

Unable to feel Steve and distrusting his senses, Jonathan tore his eyes open and backed away from Steve, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. Steve sat there, crouched next to the bed and looking at Jonathan with wide eyes. Then his expression turned from surprised to confused, and maybe a little hurt.

"Sorry," Jonathan said, reaching for Steve. He realized that after he'd set his shield again, he hadn't brought Steve or Nancy back in. When Steve put his hand in Jonathan's, reestablishing the connection was as easy as breathing. Steve was worried about him, and a little hurt by Jonathan's reaction to him. "I'm okay," he assured Steve. "Let's go home."

During the trip home, Jonathan rode with Steve and Nancy, and Jenny, when she insisted on sticking close to Jonathan. Steve drove and Nancy read through the files some more, obsessed with something about them. When they got to the freeway, Jenny asked Jonathan, "Is that the sky?"

He felt how genuine her question was and it broke his heart. "Yeah. It's cloudy tonight, otherwise you might be able to see stars. It might snow."

"One of my books had snow in it," she told him, reaching over and taking Jonathan's hand. She showed him a quick-as-a-flash series of memories. She sat in someone's lap, looking at the colorful pictures and listening to the words.

"Who was that reading to you?" Jonathan asked her, and she showed him a woman's face.

_Teacher_ , Jenny told him, and he got the feeling that she wasn't going to miss the woman. A few more memories flashed through Jonathan's mind, painting a picture of a young girl who had grown up barely living. The worst ones were the memories Jenny had of realizing her teachers didn't love her. Not the way she loved them.

_I'm sorry_ , Jonathan told her. _You shouldn't have been made to grow up like that._

Jenny looked at him for a moment, and then asked, "Why can't I see yours?"

"My what?" Jonathan asked her.

"What you remember. I…" She looked in the front seat at Nancy, and then at Steve. "How are they so quiet?"

Jonathan wasn't sure what she was experiencing, but he thought it might have had something to do with the Upside Down "stuff" as El called it. He told her, "My sister taught me how to build a wall to keep others out. She can teach you, too."

El's face flashed through Jonathan's mind, with a questioning sort of tone attached to it.

"Yeah. That's El."

Jenny shivered and picked at the hem of the sweater Nancy had bought for her. _Strong_.

Jonathan pushed his feelings and memories about El at Jenny, not sure whether or not it would work. It must have, because her fear dropped away. Then she showed Jonathan a man's face. 

_Who's that_? Jonathan asked her.

_He was coming for me_ , she replied, her fear creeping back. _Paid for me. I was supposed to help him._

"It's against the law to own people," Jonathan insisted, making sure Jenny looked into his eyes and believed him. After her small nod, he asked her, "Did anyone tell you what you were supposed to help him with?"

"Wanted me to tell him what other people were thinking," she said, looking back out the window. "Said I would make him a lot of money."

Then she showed him a picture from one of her books. It was a swingset, with a child on one of the swings. _I just want to play_.

"We'll build you one," Jonathan promised her, showing her one of the memories he had of swinging at the park, his mom pushing him and making him laugh. "Kids are supposed to play."

Turning in her seat, Nancy asked, "Honey, do you know how old you are?"

Jenny shook her head.

"But they called you one-oh-oh-one?"

She nodded.

Looking at the papers in her lap with a flashlight, Nancy told them, "This says Generation One, Subject 001 was delivered by cesarean on February 10th, 1980."

"What does that mean?" Jenny asked.

"It means you're going to be seven in a couple months," Jonathan told her. He pushed toward her a memory of Will smiling and blowing out his birthday candles. 

“You’re the same age as my little sister,” Nancy realized out loud.

"Does it say who her parents are?" Steve asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

Nancy shook her head. "All I have are coded numbers. S1 and S2. No names."

"Maybe Robin can fill in the gaps," Steve said, changing lanes to pass a semi. Shaking his head, he told the others, "I can't believe she would just stay behind like that."

"She can take care of herself," Nancy assured him. "I'm sure we'll hear from her soon."

Jonathan reached forward and put his hand on Steve's shoulder, hoping that would be the case.

As they drove farther and farther from the facility, Jonathan realized that he wasn't letting himself think about what had happened to him there. He knew he would have to at some point, but he was so tired, and his nose was still bleeding a little bit, and he just wanted to forget everything that had happened long enough to sleep, and long enough to recover.


	19. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It isn't so much a triumphant return as a sleepy collapse back into a safe place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for this chapter: vomiting occurs.

When Steve pulled into the driveway behind Hop's truck, it was after midnight. Jenny and Jonathan were both asleep in the back seat, and Nancy looked like she was about five minutes from dozing off as well. It wasn't so much a triumphant return as a sleepy collapse back into a safe place.

Steve carried Jenny into the house and, when directed by Joyce, put her in El's bed. Nancy helped Jonathan into the house, and Steve joined them in his and Jonathan's room when he was done putting Jenny down. He stripped to his underwear and got into bed, curling around Jonathan. Nancy joined them a minute later, putting her face against Jonathan's and holding his hands. 

There had been so little sleep over the prior two days that Steve slipped off to sleep somewhere between one thought and the next. He woke to Jonathan crawling over him and crashing out of the room. Sure someone was attacking them and heart beating so fast it hurt, Steve followed him. They ended up in the bathroom, Steve rubbing Jonathan's back as he threw up.

Nancy came into the bathroom a minute later, wearing Jonathan's sweater and carrying a glass of water. She sat down on the floor with them, giving Jonathan the glass of water and petting his hair as he sipped from it. The bathroom floor was cold, so Steve asked Jonathan, "Do you want to go back to bed? Or I could bring a blanket in here?"

"Bed," he insisted, letting Steve pull him up to his feet. "But let me sleep on the outside. So I can get out if I need to."

"Sure," Steve said, worried about Jonathan. He remembered what that Travis guy had told him about bad it had been coming off the drugs they'd given him. He promised himself that he would do everything in his power to get Jonathan through this. Even if Jonathan got sick of him being there every second of every day. Steve didn't care. He'd rather have Jonathan mad at him and _healthy_ than happy with him, but struggling. 

Jonathan laid back on the side of the bed closest to the door. Feeling the need to hold _someone_ , Steve gestured Nancy to the middle of the bed. He thought maybe the worry over Jonathan would keep him awake, but he'd only just wrapped himself around Nancy when he fell back asleep. 

The rest of the night was spent fitfully, Jonathan leaving the bed a few times, and eventually morning came around. Steve found himself alone in bed, and he had to take a few deep breaths and tell himself it was okay. The others were still in the house. He could hear Lucas and Dustin laughing about something. No one had taken Jonathan again. No one had taken Nancy.

Everything was _fine_.

Steve still found himself needing to make sure. He pulled on some clothes and wandered out of his room. The kitchen was full of people eating breakfast, with Nancy and Hopper on one end discussing the files they had spread out in front of them. Joyce was watching Jenny eat a plateful of eggs and a bowl of cereal. Jonathan wasn't there.

Steve checked the living room next. There was a blanket on the couch, but no one sitting on it. Quickly checking that the bathroom was empty, Steve made his way down to the basement. He found El and Max playing a game on the Atari, both of them smiling and laughing about it. Kali was sitting behind them on the couch, looking a little out of place, but maybe like she was happy about the fact El had friends.

Without looking over, El said to Steve, "Jonathan's in the tub. You can go in."

"Thanks," he replied, heading over to the bathroom and opening the door. It was dark in there, and even darker when Steve closed the door behind him. "Hey."

"Hey," said Jonathan's voice from across the room. 

Steve followed the sound, finding the tub with his hand and sitting down next to it. "What are you doing in here?"

"Just…" Jonathan sighed. "Floating." He splashed around softly before adding, "Not being in my stupid, shitty body for a few minutes."

Hearing Jonathan talk about himself that way made Steve's chest clench painfully.

"No," Jonathan said, and Steve realized after a second it was in response to Steve's emotional reaction. "I mean…" He paused, and Steve heard him swallow. "After all the–the drugs they gave me. And doing what I did to get– to get _out_ of there. Everything _hurts_."

"Let me get you something," Steve insisted. "Some aspirin or something. Water. Something to eat?"

Jonathan sighed again. "In a minute. Just–" He splashed a little again, and Steve heard him tap on the edge of the tub. "Hold my hand?"

"Gladly." Steve found Jonathan's hand at the edge of the tub in the dark and moved so that he could comfortably lace their fingers together. 

After a long few minutes of silence, Jonathan asked, "Was I really only gone for two days?"

With a small laugh, Steve said, "Yeah."

"Feels like longer."

"Tell me about it." Steve squeezed Jonathan's hand and thought about how happy he was that Jonathan was finally home.

The door opened, and Steve had to squint at the light coming in around the silhouette in the doorway. "There you are," said Nancy's voice as the door closed behind her. "Wow. It's really dark in here."

"Just go slow," Steve told her. "We're over here."

Nancy's foot found Steve's leg at the same time her hand found his face. "Oh! Sorry!"

"C'mere," Steve said, putting Nancy in his lap. He found her right hand and put it with his over Jonathan’s hand. 

Nancy relaxed back against Steve with a sigh, resting her head against his shoulder. “I talked to my mom,” she said, rubbing her cheek against Steve’s. “She expects me and Mike home this afternoon. I think…” She sighed again. “I think if I’m going to have any chance of getting out of the dorm and living with you guys, I should probably try to make her happy.”

Jonathan made a displeased noise.

“I know,” she replied, shifting in Steve’s lap so she was facing Jonathan more fully. "I don't want to go either. Last time I left, one of you got kidnapped and the other got arrested. Seems–"

"Wait, you got _arrested_?" Jonathan asked, splashing around in the tub.

Steve squeezed Jonathan's hand. "Don't worry about it, babe. It was no big deal. Hop got me out of the worst of it."

"Yeah," Nancy said. "You only broke the _one_ law. I'm pretty sure I broke at least four… no, _five_. Didn't get caught, though."

"What?" Jonathan asked, sounding more than a little distressed. Honestly, so was Steve. He never got around to getting the full story from Nancy the day before. "What did you do?"

Sounding so nonchalant it was a little scary, Nancy told them, "Hop and I broke into Dr. Lahey's house. Threatened him. Tied him up. Pressed him for information. Stole some of his files. You know, what we had to do."

"Jesus Christ," Steve said with a little laugh, hugging Nancy closer to him. "You're a menace, Nancy Wheeler."

Jonathan pulled his hand back from theirs, slipping it back into the water. Something about the gesture on top of the silence that followed worried Steve. "What is it, Jonathan?"

"I…"

Suddenly, there was a big splash and Jonathan stumbled out of the tub and around them. He opened the door that led to the little toilet at the back of the room and retched. Steve winced at the sound and Nancy put a tight grip on the arm he had around her waist.

"I'm gonna turn on the light," Steve said, lifting Nancy out of his lap. "Okay?"

"Yeah," Jonathan said, flushing the toilet.

Steve had been in this room enough times over the past month that he was able to find the lightswitch with only a little bit of fumbling around. As he blinked, his eyes getting used to the light, Steve noticed Nancy cross the room to the cabinet and pull out a towel. She crouched down next to Jonathan and pulled it around him, before brushing his hair back and kissing his forehead.

Steve joined them, asking Jonathan, "Are you okay, baby?"

"No," Jonathan replied, trembling. He wiped at his nose, and his hand came back red. "I just… There were so _many_ last night, and I…" Closing his eyes, Jonathan shook his head. 

"So many what?" Nancy asked gently, rubbing her hands on his towel-covered arms. 

Jonathan looked up at her. "I killed them. I just… El and Will showed me how and I didn't even stop to _think_. I just–just did it. Killed them. Like it meant nothing."

"Hey, listen to me," Nancy said, her voice unyielding. "They kidnapped you. They drugged you and hurt you and kept you prisoner. Everything you did to get yourself out of there – _everything_ – was self-defense. Got it?"

Jonathan wiped his bleeding nose again and nodded. 

"You got yourself back to us, and I will not let you feel bad about it," Nancy added, kissing Jonathan's forehead again. "All that violence was _not_ your fault. The fault belongs to the people who stole you away from us. Not to you. Never to you, baby."

Jonathan gave a soft little sob, but he whispered, "Okay." 

"And it wasn't just yourself you were saving," Steve insisted, scooting closer and putting his arms around both of them. "You got Jenny out, too. You protected her and got her away from the people who were going to sell her."

"I'm so proud of you for that," Nancy insisted. "So is everyone else. The whole family."

Before Jonathan could respond, there was a knock on the door. "Hey, guys?" said Joyce. "Owens is here. We need you upstairs."

"Yeah, give us a minute, Mom," Steve called back. He kissed Jonathan's arm and asked, "Will you let Nancy help you get rinsed off real quick? I'll go grab you some clean clothes."

Jonathan nodded and sighed. "Might as well get this over with."

~*~

When Nancy made it up to the living room with Jonathan and Steve, everyone else was already there. Joyce made room for Jonathan on the couch, so Nancy and Steve sat on the floor at his feet. She leaned against Jonathan a bit, letting him feel that she was there, and reached over to hold Steve’s hand. 

Dr. Owens sat on one of the kitchen chairs, which someone had set right in front of the Christmas tree. It surprised Nancy to see Robin standing near the front door, her eyes on Owens as he cleared his throat. 

“Uh, hi. Yes, hello,” he said, rubbing his hands together and looking around the room. “Big weekend we all had, didn’t we?”

Standing with his arms crossed at the back of the room, Hopper scoffed. 

“Get to the point, _please_ ,” Joyce said. 

“Right. Well, as you are aware, our young mister Jonathan appears to have stumbled across a facility that, honestly, we’ve been trying to track down for years.”

“You _knew_ about this?” Nancy asked, incensed. “For _years_?”

“No, not about _this_ ,” Owens told her. “Nothing with this sort of scope. We knew that certain, um, assets would go missing for extended periods of time. We assumed they were getting help evading our surveillance. It's a funny thing about telepaths. Most of them can tell when they're being watched. We figured it was a hazard of the occupation.”

“But if you were watching the people who got taken,” Kali asked him, a deep frown on her face, “wouldn't you have noticed others following them? Wouldn't you have noticed the kidnappings?”

“We, uh,” Owens said, giving Kali a nervous smile. “We had limited resources, you see. And no definitive proof that all of the people who went missing had certain…traits of interest. You have to understand that we've just found out about most of what was going on there ourselves. And, I mean, it appears as if most of the subjects of this project turned themselves over voluntarily. They didn't know they had abilities. They didn't appear to be missing. And this is a big country, after all. We can’t be everywh–”

“No! You–!” El cried, standing up and clenching her fists. “You _knew_!” She glared at Owens, and Nancy wondered if he was about to have his brain melted. By the look on his face, Owens might have been worried about that same outcome. But El kept talking instead. “You used Jonathan as bait! You made sure Nancy found out about the trial, and you _knew_ they would take him! You knew we would stop at nothing to find him!”

Nancy gasped, feeling like she couldn’t breathe all of a sudden. Owens had _used_ her? Used them? Gotten to her editor somehow? She glared at him, and it was only Steve’s hand on Nancy’s shoulder that kept her from standing up and trying to strangle him with her bare hands.

Owens pressed his lips together. “No point in hiding anything from you, is there young lady?” He sighed and rubbed one of his eyebrows. “It was an educated guess. Our analysts indicated Chicago was a hot spot of activity. Dr. Lahey had interned with Brenner, just for a semester, early on in his career. It was a tenuous connection. Not worth devoting real resources to. And, well, Miss Wheeler has shown herself to be more than capable of getting to the bottom of these things several times over.”

That was it. Nancy shrugged off Steve’s hand and stood up as she cried, “I can’t believe you! Jonathan could have been _killed_!” Hopper stopped Nancy before she could get to Owens. “You used us, and for _what_?”

Owens gave Nancy a hard look before saying, “You helped take down a criminal organization far bigger than we realized even existed. We thought it was just someone curious, someone getting close to the truth about what some human minds are really capable of. Perhaps it was the Russians, trying to learn more about the program Brenner started.” He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair before continuing. 

“But it was much worse than that. Designer _children_ , sold as slaves to the highest bidder? No regard for national security?” Owens gestured with his hands as he spoke. “No regard for human dignity? Completely evil, in other words.”

“What are you going to do about it?” Joyce demanded. “All those children?”

Nodding, Owen assured her, “We are doing our best to either reunite them with their parents, or otherwise find them good homes.”

Speaking up suddenly, Jenny said, “I want to stay here.”

Owens looked to Hopper, who sighed, and went to crouch down in front of Jenny. 

Before he could speak, Jenny asked, “Why doesn’t it matter that you want to keep me? It should matter!”

“Because,” Hopper told her. “We can only keep you if your parents sign away their rights to you. They have to make that decision.”

“But Nancy said you don’t know who they are. What if you can’t find them?” Jenny asked, and Nancy tried not to let it show on her face that the information Jenny was talking about technically came from files she’d stolen from the Execugen facility.

Owens didn’t seem to notice. He insisted, “We’ll arrange it so you can stay here while we look. Alright, sweetheart?” Jenny thought about this for a second, then nodded. Owens then said, “As long as it’s okay with Mom and Dad.”

Joyce nodded. “Of course. We know how to handle…” Joyce gestured around the room. Nancy took that to mean “children with abilities.”

It made Nancy wonder what was going to happen to all those other kids in the facility. Were they as gifted as Jenny? Would anybody be able to parent _them_ effectively? She got the feeling that Jenny was the first to be sold, but what if she wasn't? What if there were other children out there, sold and enslaved and needing real homes?

“It’s settled, then,” Owens said with a pleased nod. Looking around the room for a moment, and then ending with Nancy, he added, “It goes without saying that none of this happened, doesn’t it? Joe Schmoe Public isn’t exactly equipped to deal with the news that people with abilities exist.”

“What about those of us with abilities?” Jonathan asked from behind Nancy, and he sounded furious. “Shouldn’t someone tell us that we’re being hunted like–like...prized _specimens_? What if this isn’t the only facility? What if this isn’t the only university study recruiting us? Using our weaknesses to trick us into trusting them, into believing that they want to make us better? It’s not _right_.” 

Nancy stepped back toward Jonathan, crouching next to him and putting her hand on his knee. Steve leaned his shoulder against Jonathan’s other leg.

Owens gaped, speechless for a moment. Eventually, he said, “I don’t know what to tell you. We honestly don’t know how big the problem is. What if, in our quest to help, say, a dozen people, we put millions into a panic? It isn’t as easy or as black and white as you’re trying to make it. If we put this information out, how many people are going to avoid getting treatment for, say, schizophrenia, or–or for drug addiction, believing they’re experiencing telepathy instead?”

Nancy cut in, asking Owens, “How many people out there will needlessly suffer like Jonathan did, in pain because they don’t realize they have powers?” She looked around the room. “How much potential are we _wasting_?”

“What are we going to do?” Owens asked with a shake of his head. “Screen two hundred some million people? First,” he held up a finger, “we don’t know how to do that. And second,” he held up another finger, “most people don’t have conscious control of this. Why tell people about it if they can’t use it?”

“They can learn to,” Will said, shrinking a little when everyone turned toward him. “El taught _me_. We taught Jonathan.”

Owens stopped short, blinking at Will a few times before asking, “Taught you _what_ , exactly?”

A snowflake ornament came off the tree behind Owens’ head and floated across the room to Will. He caught it gently in his hand and said, “That.”

Nancy couldn’t help but picture Will writhing on the CIA office floor, bleeding from his nose as he did whatever El was sure would help Jonathan. Was this new ability of his the result of that process? 

Will dabbed at his nose with the tissue Dustin handed him. “I don’t think it’s possible for everyone to learn,” Will said. “But those of us that start out with the right…” he shrugged and looked over at Joyce. “The right type of brain, or gene, or whatever? We can _learn_.”

When Will mentioned the word "gene," Nancy remembered that Dr. Lahey was a geneticist. That was a scientist who studied genes, wasn't it? That was the kind of person you might need to maximize your chances of breeding "subjects" with the right genes for abilities. Nancy felt sick.

“It’s risky,” Eleven insisted, looking over at Owens. “Brenner pushed Ten too hard, remember? You gave me the file. His brain started bleeding and wouldn’t stop. It killed him.”

A sharp flare of worry shot through Nancy and she looked up at Jonathan. His sleeve was already dotted with little spots of blood dabbed away from his nose. 

“No,” Jonathan told her. “It’s getting better, I swear.”

“Maybe we should get a scan,” Joyce said. “Just to be sure.”

Jonathan looked at his mother for a long second before whispering, “Please don’t ask me to go to a hospital. _Please_.” He sounded desperate, and Nancy knew it must have been due to the hospital-like facility in which he’d been trapped and experimented on for the past two days.

“Will and I can come with,” El told him. “We won’t let anyone touch you.”

Jonathan looked miserable, but he nodded. “That would be okay. I guess.”

As the group broke apart, Nancy caught up with Robin. She had one, final, lingering question. "Hey," she asked, giving Robin a quick hug. "Can I ask? Did you guys find Katie Frazer?"

"Yeah," Robin said, giving Nancy a sad smile. "She's six months pregnant. Owens has a bunch of the patients set up at the Navy hospital north of Chicago. They're helping her get off the drugs slowly."

"Will you help me get in contact with her after the holidays are over? I know a few people who'd like to see her." Nancy smiled and Robin nodded.

"Yeah," she said, giving Nancy another hug. "Yeah, I think putting her back in touch with her old friends is a great idea. She's going to need someone."


	20. Healing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving on isn't quite as easy as Jonathan would like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: discussion of previous non-con. There's also some very light dominance/submission content (as well as Steve's usual kinks, lol).

Jonathan thought after the day he'd had, that he was going to be too emotional to be able to fall asleep. After all, he'd had to say goodbye to Nancy and the rest of the Hawkins crew. And then he had to let Owens use the scanner at Springfield General to make sure he didn’t have brain damage. They found some minor swelling, which was probably putting back pressure on the arteries in his nose, making them leak – Owens assured him the prognosis was good if he took the time to rest.

Except his healing body must have taken over and shut down his anxious mind, because he passed out almost as soon as he laid down in bed. He didn’t wake up until morning, when he noticed he was sleeping with Steve curled protectively around him. Jonathan turned in Steve’s arms, watching his face for a few minutes while he slept.

Jonathan remembered how horrified the technicians at the facility were when they found out Jonathan was in love with Steve. They didn’t understand the way Jonathan’s heart clenched when he watched Steve sleep. They didn’t understand that the smell of him made Jonathan feel at home. They didn’t understand the devotion Jonathan felt, the certainty that he wanted to wake up with Steve in their shared bed every single day for the rest of his life.

And Jonathan was sure they wouldn’t understand the way he felt the same strength of emotion for Nancy, too. The thought of not seeing her until the day after Christmas hurt. He wanted her with them, at least at the beginning and at the end of the day. The bed felt too big without her in it. 

Steve stirred a little, starting to wake up. Jonathan couldn’t help but smile at the way Steve hugged him just a little tighter. He put his free hand on Steve’s cheek and rubbed his thumb along Steve’s cheekbone. Eyes still closed, Steve smiled in response, then puckered his lips, turning and kissing Jonathan’s hand. 

Turning Steve’s chin back toward him, Jonathan scooted down just enough to kiss Steve on the lips. It was a slow, unhurried kiss for a slow, unhurried morning. Steve hummed into the kiss, trailing his fingers down Jonathan’s arm and then back up again. It felt nice, so Jonathan gave Steve a deeper kiss, pressing at him just a little harder, knowing it would start to get Steve warmed up.

Without opening his eyes, Steve kissed back. He shifted his hips and pressed his hard cock against Jonathan’s thigh, which in turn made Jonathan’s breath hitch in his throat. He felt his own cock fill, demanding attention, so he pressed it against Steve’s hip, shuddering at the feel of the friction. 

Waking up a little more now, Jonathan let his connection with Steve deepen, let himself feel how turned on, but also content Steve felt. Jonathan let himself feel how shivery it made all of Steve’s skin when Jonathan kissed and nibbled on his neck.

Steve’s big, hot hand brushed down over Jonathan’s belly, pushing at Jonathan’s underwear until he helped get them down and off. And then Steve wrapped his fingers around Jonathan’s dick. 

Ice-cold terror ran down Jonathan’s spine and he couldn’t breathe. He knocked Steve’s hand away and scrambled back until he was sitting up, breathing heavily, goosebumps covering his skin, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. 

He felt Steve’s confusion and concern a fraction of a second before they manifested on his face. Blinking up at Jonathan, Steve asked, “Baby? What’s wrong?”

Jonathan’s tongue felt like it was made out of lead. Hot tears sprung up from the corners of his eyes. “I–I don’t know,” Jonathan admitted, wrapping his arms around himself. “I got scared.”

Steve moved so he was sitting next to Jonathan, carefully not touching him. Jonathan _wanted_ Steve to touch him, more than just about anything else (except maybe either Nancy or a goddamn drink). To bridge the gap, Jonathan leaned over, putting his head on Steve’s shoulder. 

Then he remembered. 

“When I first got there,” he said, pulling the blankets up to cover himself against the cool December air, “I was sedated. The first, or maybe it was the second time I woke up, I thought Nancy was there with me. She called me ‘baby’. She touched me.”

“You were dreaming?” Steve asked, but Jonathan shook his head. 

“I don’t think so. It was someone else. Not Nancy. She made me…” Jonathan sighed, putting his hand over his eyes. “I mean, I was barely conscious. Couldn’t even open my eyes.”

Steve leaned his cheek against the top of Jonathan’s head. “What did she make you do?” he asked softly.

“I think– God, it’s so hard to remember.” Sniffling, Jonathan wiped some of the tears from his face. “I think she made me come. With her hand.”

“Oh,” Steve said, and there was sadness coming from him, but also anger, and a red-hot streak of jealousy. Practically snarling, Steve said, “I wish I could break every bone in her hand. And then break every bone in her other hand for good measure. You’re not for anyone else to touch. Just me and Nancy.”

Jonathan nodded, sniffling again. “I should have known it wasn’t Nancy. I shouldn’t have let her–”

“Hey,” Steve insisted, turning and putting his arms around Jonathan. “Don’t do that. Like you said, you were drugged. I _know_ it can make you accept things happening to you that you otherwise wouldn’t.”

“The Russians?” Jonathan asked.

Steve nodded, his emotions a swirling mess of anger, sadness, and regret. “The motherfucking Russians.”

Jonathan put his nose in Steve’s hair, smelling him and then kissing him. As the fear subsided, the longing he felt for Steve returned. He asked softly, “D’you think, maybe, I could just touch you? For now?”

“Want me to sit on my hands or something?” Steve asked with a little laugh, raising his head and looking at Jonathan.

“Lie back,” Jonathan told him. “Put them under your head.”

Jonathan watched Steve’s eyes get darker and felt the deep riptide of _want_ that flowed through him. Muttering a soft, “Fuck,” Steve did what Jonathan asked. He laid out on the bed next to Jonathan, his hands behind his head. He was still wearing the boxers he’d worn to bed the night before, but otherwise he was naked.

Leaning over, Jonathan cupped Steve’s face with his hands and kissed him. He licked Steve’s lower lip and shuddered at the echo of Steve’s pleasure that he felt. Jonathan moved so he was straddling Steve’s belly and pushed his hands into Steve’s hair, tugging just a bit. 

“Oh, fuck,” Steve sighed, then he gasped when Jonathan tugged harder. “Christ!”

Not once did Steve move his hands from under his head. 

“God, you’re so good for me,” Jonathan whispered, kissing Steve again. 

The words made Steve feel pleased and loving, but also really turned on. 

“You want me to talk to you?” Jonathan asked, kissing the stubble on Steve’s jaw, licking the soft skin on his neck.

“Yes,” Steve admitted. Usually he was the one talking in bed, but Jonathan could feel how much Steve wanted to switch things around.

“Tell you how good you’re being, baby?” Jonathan asked, kissing Steve’s chest. “How I know you’re not going to move your arms, even if you wanted to?”

“I won’t,” he insisted, and Jonathan had his hands wrapped around Steve’s rib cage when he sighed. 

Jonathan kissed Steve’s belly and hooked his fingers into the waistband of Steve’s underwear. 

“How long,” Jonathan asked as he pulled them down and eased Steve’s legs out of them, “would you hold still for me, Steve?”

“As long as you wanted,” Steve insisted, his feelings so full of love and desire it was hard not to get overwhelmed. “Jonathan!”

He spent a minute with his hand wrapped around Steve's cock, stroking him lightly, getting him warmed up. Then, pushing Steve’s knees up, Jonathan asked, “Do you want me to fuck you?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed, watching Jonathan as he trailed his fingers down the backs of Steve’s thighs.

“You look so fucking pretty like this,” Jonathan told him, kissing the side of Steve’s knee. “You’re gonna be good and keep your knees up while I find the lube, aren’t you, baby?”

Steve’s breath hitched and went ragged. “God, yeah.”

There wasn’t any in the nightstand drawer, because they didn’t live here anymore. But then Jonathan checked Steve’s bag and found it there, also finding something hard wrapped in a sweater while he was looking. Unwrapping it, Jonathan found his camera, and he gave a little laugh. 

While he was up, he double-checked that the door was locked, then went back to bed with his camera and the lube.

He set the camera on the nightstand and ducked down to kiss Steve. “You thought to bring me my camera.”

“You never go anywhere without it,” Steve insisted, and Jonathan saw that he was trembling a little bit. 

“You’re so good and thoughtful,” Jonathan praised him, getting back between Steve’s legs. He covered Steve’s chest with his own, kissing Steve until he groaned. “I love you.”

“Babe, please!”

“Please, what?” Jonathan asked, enjoying the way Steve’s emotions reacted to his words – needy and frustrated, but oh so satisfied.

“Please fuck me,” Steve whispered. “I’ve been so good.”

“Yes, you have,” Jonathan insisted, opening the lube and putting some on his cock. He spread it around with his hand and was relieved to realize that he could still touch _himself_ without freaking out. That was a start, anyway. He turned his attention fully back to Steve. “You deserve a nice, slow fuck, baby.”

Steve groaned, and while he did, Jonathan pressed his wet cock against Steve’s hole.

“You gonna let me in, baby? My good,” Jonathan gave a little thrust, “pretty,” he thrust again, “sexy,” and again, “boy?”

“I’m yours,” Steve insisted, his elbows raised off the pillow, but his hands still under his head. He squirmed around a little, but Jonathan could tell it was from pleasure, not pain or discomfort. “Do I feel good…” Steve asked, stopping to lick his lips. “Good for you?”

“So good,” Jonathan insisted, thrusting a few more shallow times before slipping the rest of the way in. He leaned forward, getting Steve’s hips far enough up onto his thighs that he could reach Steve’s lips and kiss him. “You feel so good, Steve,” he sighed, drawing out slowly (not very far because of the position they were in) and pushing back in carefully. The hot, wet clenching around Jonathan’s cock did feel incredible, but what felt even better were the sparks of pleasure and love he could feel coming from Steve. 

“Mm, never want to be apart from you,” Jonathan said, unable to stop himself from lifting Steve's legs with his arms and moving his knees so he could speed up just the tiniest bit. 

“Jona– Jonathan!” Steve whined, tilting his hips to meet each of Jonathan’s thrusts. 

“Oh, I can feel it,” Jonathan told him, giving a thrust at just the right angle to make Steve’s desire spike. “I can feel how good this is for you. Right–” He thrust again. “Right there!”

“Ah! Fuck,” Steve said through clenched teeth, tilting his head back.

Jonathan spent the next few dozen slow, hard thrusts sucking a mark on Steve’s neck. Then he said, “Baby, be good and come for me. Show me you can do it,” and sped up.

Steve’s emotions went off the charts in the split second before his ass clenched down and his cock spurted between them. Jonathan held on, grinding the spot that made Steve feel so damn good. 

Jonathan only realized as it ended that he’d come too, his cock still twitching with aftershocks. “Oh, god, Steve,” he sighed. “Move your arms, okay? Hold me, I need…”

As Jonathan slipped out, Steve wrapped his arms around Jonathan, keeping him close, kissing him, loving him. “Like that, babe?”

“Exactly like that,” Jonathan said with a happy sigh. “Am I crushing you?”

With a little laugh, Steve said, “No. You’re good.”

Jonathan hummed, reaching up and kissing Steve’s cheek. “Thank you for indulging me.”

Steve laughed, happy and amused.

Smiling, Jonathan asked, “What?”

“You just gave me one of the best fucks of my entire life,” Steve insisted. “And you’re thanking _me_?”

Jonathan could feel himself blushing, even on top of being flushed with exertion. “I know that you’re giving me a compliment,” Jonathan told him with a little laugh. “But I’ve been a participant in, what? Ninety percent of the times you’ve had sex?”

Steve shrugged. “What’s your point?”

“Just that the ‘best ever’ odds are kind of in my favor,” Jonathan insisted. 

“Whatever,” Steve insisted. “All I’m saying is that I can only think of one thing that would have made that better for me.”

“What’s that?” Jonathan asked, realizing they were going to have to move soon if they didn’t want to end up glued together. 

“Nancy riding my face,” he admitted.

Jonathan pictured it, and his cock twitched (a little painfully, he was oversensitive) against Steve’s stomach. “Her legs holding your arms down?”

“Fuck, yeah. You get it.”

“Mm,” Jonathan hummed in agreement. He shifted far enough away that he could grab a pair of dirty underwear from the floor to wipe Steve’s come off his belly. While he was at it, he cleaned up Steve a bit too. 

Settling back next to Steve, Jonathan told him, “The night before… well, _everything_ that happened? Nancy took control. Like she does sometimes. It was…” He sighed and shook his head. “I _loved_ it. I just hope I can get back to being able to do that. Give up control like that.”

“You will,” Steve assured him. “We’ll work you up to it, huh?”

Jonathan nodded. “I’m not going to let them take away the part of me that likes being touched by you. Not for long.”

“Good.”

~*~

Steve had been thinking about it for most of the day, but it was almost six by the time he picked up the extension in his room and dialed his mother’s number. 

He wasn’t sure that she would pick up, but then she did. “Hello?”

“Hi. It’s Steve.”

“Steve!” she cried, and she sounded excited. It broke his heart a little bit. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“Yeah, I figured…” He had to stop and swallow nervously. “I figured it’s almost Christmas. I should call.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“Listen, I’m coming to Hawkins the day after Christmas. On Friday. I was going to stay in the hotel downtown, but–”

“No! You should stay here!” she insisted. “Your room is just how you left it. We could have a late Christmas dinner, or–”

“Mom!” Steve insisted, cutting her off. “Sorry, it’s just, before you offer me the room, I gotta tell you something. I just… It’s important to me, and I have to know, even if you don’t approve of what I’m going to say, you won’t ever use it against me.”

“Use _what_ against you?” she asked. 

“Would you? ‘Cause if I tell you this, you could use it to ruin my career.” Steve scoffed at himself. “The career I don’t even have yet, but still. Can I trust you?”

After a short pause, Harriet said, “Yes, darling. You can trust me. Whatever it is.”

Steve took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Here it goes.” He had to breathe again before he could do it. “I have a boyfriend. His name is Jonathan and we’ve been living together. You know, ever since I moved out.”

“A boyfriend?” Harriet asked. “Oh. And–and living together? Oh my.” 

She was silent for a moment and Steve was sure he’d made a terrible mistake.

But then she asked, “Do you love him?”

“Yes,” Steve insisted. “I love him very much.”

“I…” She paused again, before eventually saying, “Do you want to bring him with? When you come visit?”

Steve let out a pent up sigh of relief. “ _Yes_.”

“Well, that would be alright. If he’s that important to you, I feel like I should meet him.”

Steve wiped his leaking eyes. “Thanks, Mom.”

“So, a late Christmas celebration?” she offered. 

“Yeah, sounds good. And…” Steve licked his lips. “Sorry, I’m really going to pile on here, but Jonathan and I are both dating Nancy Wheeler. Can I bring her, too?”

“Steven!” she gasped. 

“What?” he asked. “Gay you could handle, but me being love with two people is just a little too out there for you?”

“You love her too?”

“Yes.”

“But she knows about Jonathan?”

“She and Jonathan love each other too, Mom. It’s not that complicated.” He sighed. “Does this change your answer about Friday?”

“No,” she insisted. “No, I still want to see you. Bring Nancy and–and Jonathan. I want to get to know them.”

Steve let out a relieved breath. “Okay. Should we plan on being there around noon?”

“Sounds perfect, darling. I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, me either,” Steve found himself saying. “Bye.”

“Goodbye, Steve.”

Steve hung up the phone and had to walk around the room a few times before he could settle down again. 

Then he picked up the phone and dialed Robin’s number. He tapped his foot as the phone rang, and then she answered it. “Robin! I did it!”

“Did what, shouting stranger?” she asked with a little laugh.

“It’s Steve,” he said, rolling his eyes. “And I told my mother about Jonathan. She wants to meet him!”

“Whoa, really?” she asked. “That’s amazing.”

“Also, I’m gonna be in Hawkins for a few days after Christmas. Wanna hang out?”

“Do I ever,” she said. “I have so much dirt on everyone, and I cannot wait to fill you in.”

“When are you moving to Chicago, anyway? Nothing has happened in Hawkins in _years_. Can’t your bosses transfer you or something?

“Knock on wood right now, mister!” Robin insisted. 

Steve laughed, but he held the phone close to the nightstand when he knocked on it. “There. Happy?”

“ _Very_ ,” she said, and the tone struck Steve as odd. Different. 

Wait a second. 

“No way!”

“Yes!” Robin insisted.

“You got Cathy Jenkins to sleep with you?” Steve asked, laying back in his bed and grinning. “Tell me everything!”

“Well, like I told you last week, we met when she came into the video store. Well, met again. We met in school forever ago.”

“Yes, yes. I know this part.”

“She liked the first movie I suggested. So when she came back, I told her I wanted to watch Nine and a Half Weeks, but no one wanted to watch it with me.”

Steve laughed. “That movie’s practically softcore! I saw it with Nancy and Jonathan in the theater. We barely made it back to Jonathan’s house without ripping each other’s clothes off.”

Robin laughed, “Right, so I go over to her place to watch it, and one thing led to another…”

“Well done,” he said, pretending to cry. “I’m so proud! My little baby Robin has learned to fly!”

“Shut up, dickhead!” she said with a peal of laughter. “It’s not like it’s rocket science!”

~*~

While Nancy was out grocery shopping with her mother the day before Christmas Eve, she excused herself to the bathroom, and stopped by the payphones instead. She fed the phone a quarter, then dialed the number she’d memorized. It was a long distance call, so she had to feed the phone a few more quarters, but eventually she got it to go through. 

“Ahab’s Waffle and Pancake House. What can I do for you?”

“It’s Nancy,” she told Murray. “What did you think of the records Hop brought you?”

“Are you at home?” he asked, suspiciously. 

“Yes, because I’m an idiot,” Nancy said, rolling her eyes. “It’s a pay phone. What did you think?”

“I think it’s almost a story,” he told her. “You got any witness accounts?”

Thinking about Jonathan, and maybe even Jenny, Nancy said, “I can get one. Anonymous source, of course.”

“Of course,” he replied. “Think about ways to water this one down. It’s too much for anyone to believe neat.”

“Can do. And I’ve tried, but I’m not getting anywhere with Execugen. Can you find out who was in charge of it? Once we have that name, we’ll have a better idea of who we’re up against.”

“It’s the holidays,” Murray pointed out. “I won’t be able to get very far with anyone. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Nancy asked him. 

“I was invited to a New Years party with some old reporter friends of mine. I’ll see what they can dig up.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“Hey, I scratch your back, you scratch mine, right?”

“Right,” Nancy agreed. She noticed her mom coming around the corner. “I’ve gotta go. I’ll be in touch either through Hop, or I’ll call again after New Years.”

“Got it, sweetheart!”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “Good bye.”

When Nancy rejoined her mother, Karen asked, “Who were you speaking to, dear?”

“Jonathan,” she said. “Just checking in.”

“Didn’t you already speak with him this morning?”

Shit. “True. But I missed him.”

Karen looked away and Nancy thought she might have been rolling her eyes. “Come on. We still have a few more things on our list.”

Nancy followed her mother for a few moments, before eventually asking, “How would you and Dad feel about me living with Jonathan next year?”

Karen gave Nancy a long look. “Well, I know your father’s not going to like the idea. You and Jonathan aren’t even engaged. What happens if you break up and you have to find a new place to live?”

“We’re not going to break up,” Nancy insisted, taking the next item from the list off the shelf and putting it in the cart. “Mom, it’s been almost three years since we started dating. He’s not going anywhere.”

Karen sighed and pushed the cart forward down the aisle. “I understand. But he’s only your second boyfriend ever, Nancy. What happens if you go your separate ways after college? Or what happens if you do get married, and later down the road you realize what different people you’ve become?”

“We’re already much different people than when we first started dating,” Nancy insisted. “And I don’t want to stop growing and changing and becoming the person I want to be. But I want to do all that _with_ Jonathan. For as long as he’ll let me.”

Karen pointed at the shelf behind Nancy, getting her to grab the cloves they needed for the Christmas ham. “How often have you been sleeping at the dorm your father and I are paying for?”

Nancy handed her mother the cloves and shrugged. “Maybe twice a week?”

Karen sighed. “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

Nancy let herself smile broadly. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

~*~

"So, everyone gets presents?" Jenny asked Jonathan, standing beside the table and watching him as he wrapped the gift he'd gotten Will. Well, more accurately, the gift that Steve had gotten Will from the both of them. Jonathan hadn't really had enough energy to go out shopping yet. "Even me?"

"Yes, even you," Jonathan assured her. "We'll open them tomorrow morning. Steve and I will make waffles and everyone will top them with too much syrup and whipped cream. We'll sit around the tree and open presents and listen to Christmas music. It'll be fun."

"Wow," she said, picking up a roll of ribbon. "The outside is really fun! Do we get to do Christmas again next week?"

"No," Jonathan told her with a little laugh.

"Oh, next _year_ ," she said, obviously having read it from his thoughts. He was going to have to do a better job with his shield before he accidentally let her know what Steve had gotten her. 

"Jenny," he reminded her gently. "Try to remember not to listen to thoughts without asking first."

She looked down and said in a small voice,"Sorry."

"It's okay," he assured her. "You're still learning." He placed the final piece of tape on the box and then stuck one of the bows on top. "What do you think?"

"Pretty," she insisted, a wide grin on her face. "Can I put it under the tree?"

Indulgently, Jonathan handed her the present, saying, "Sure."

He watched her through the archway between the kitchen and the living room, laughing when she gave a few excited hops on the way. At the same time Jonathan heard a car door close outside, Jenny looked back at Jonathan and told him, "Hoppy is back!"

Jonathan covered his mouth so she wouldn't see him grinning at the nickname. 

When the door opened and Hopper came in, Jenny jumped up into the foyer, saying, "Hoppy, Hoppy, Hoppy, look! We wrapped presents!"

"You did, huh?" he asked, his voice gruff as he took off his boots and hung his coat in the closet. But then he picked Jenny up and said, "I might just have to take a look. Make sure they're up to code."

Jenny laughed and pointed to the tree. "They're over there!"

Jonathan felt his mom come into the kitchen from the back hallway. She squeezed his shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “Is that all of them?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Jonathan told her, watching Jenny show Hop all the presents. “I hope you guys get to keep her.”

Joyce smiled and hugged Jonathan again. “Yeah. Me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading and commenting. I can hardly believe you guys are still following this series! 
> 
> There's going to be a break here while I work on writing the next long fic. I'm thinking I'll post the follow-on short fic in about a week, and then start the long fic in two to three weeks once it's completely finished and edited. Make sure to subscribe to the [Mr. Sandman series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1527764) so you don't miss any updates!
> 
> If there are any aspects of this AU you'd like to know more about, or any scenes you'd like to see, make sure to leave them in the comments! I love playing in this sandbox so much, I'd be happy to fill prompts if you have them!
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://pterawaters.tumblr.com/) and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/pterawaters).


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